Season 22 of ESL Pro League is right around the corner.

Twenty-two seasons.

EPL now officially has more seasons than Grey’s Anatomy. Seriously though, how is that show still alive?

To mark the milestone, Stage 1 will feature some very exciting names like the juggernauts Rooster, the iconic Inner Circle, and the infamous HOTU.

Yeah, EPL isn’t exactly known for its jaw-dropping team lineups - at least not at start - but we’ll take all the Swiss formats we can get. God bless Switzerland.

Anyway, that doesn’t mean we can’t take a look and start throwing out some predictions. As always, if by some slim chance you’re using our takes to build your fantasy team, just go in the exact opposite direction of what you’re about to read.

So, for the teams with a nearly guaranteed Stage 2 spot, we’d point to FURIA, G2, and Astralis. They might drop a series - most likely two if it’s Astralis we’re talking about - but they should still make it through.

All three are fresh off Playoff runs at FISSURE Playground 2, where the competition was a bit tougher than what they’ll face in Stockholm. Not to mention FURIA’s championship run.

In the middle of the pack come HEROIC, Legacy, Virtus.Pro, B8, Lynn Vision, GamerLegion, and 3DMAX - teams that could comfortably make it to Stage 2, just scrape through, or crash out entirely. Take your pick.

But that’s the beauty of the Swiss, isn’t it?

In this lot, the spotlight will be on hypex, who will make his debut for GamerLegion. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the new environment.

For 3DMAX, the news isn’t positive at all, as they’ll be playing with Nivera instead of Maka, due to family reasons. This significantly hurts their chances, since Maka is one of the team’s most impactful players. That said, they should still have enough firepower to make it through in one piece.

Lastly, the teams fighting not to go out dead last.

No one expects much from Inner Circle (ex-TNL), Fluxo, HOTU, Rooster, and NRG, but they could still steal a game here and there. And given the usual chaos of Swiss systems, we’d confidently say they probably will.

However, it would take a catastrophe of massive proportions for any of these teams to make it out of Stage 1. Let’s hope that’s not the case.

On a side note, haven’t these Rooster guys been a part of every EPL season since the dawn of time and always end up at the bottom? Hey, huge respect to you guys. You’re the ones with the all-expenses-paid trip to lovely Stockholm, not us.

But don’t worry, dear readers, we just need to be patient. The real teams are coming.