Have you ever wanted to watch the Major format, but online, with several top teams missing? ESL have you covered.

Jokes aside, ESL Pro League’s first stage has actually been quite exciting. North America has been taking Ls (a fat W for anyone on the right side of the Atlantic), and hatewatching G2 and Liquid has proved incredibly enjoyable. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite Brazilian IGL-geniuses have taken big wins, and the fun, young international teams have managed to nigh on seal Major qualification.

The big headline story, and perhaps the only blemish on this otherwise perfect Swiss-bracket, is PARIVISION. With the amount of high peaks and low valleys we’re starting to think dastan is a big fan of roller coasters.

We thought an all-BO3 Swiss bracket would make it impossible to go from 2-0 to 2-3, but ever the trailblazer, Jame is once again breaking new ground. Seriously, you couldn’t close against Legacy, Monte, and HEROIC of all teams?

Because yes, the losses were in that order. On his debut as the IGL of the team, arT took Legacy from dire straits to taking down NIP, G2 and PARIVISION on the way to a 3-0 finish. And his compatriot in biguzera didn’t do that badly either, with paiN ending up 3-1 after another Brazilian statement win against G2.

Though at the rate teams are upsetting G2 we have to wonder how big those statements really are.

Alongside the Brazilians, FUT, Monte, HEROIC, G2, 3DMAX, and Astralis round out the advancing teams, and for several of them these matches were important for their hopes of making the Cologne Major later this spring. That was also helped by Liquid looking about as helpless as a beached whale, even losing a map to SemperFi at one point.

You read that right - SemperFi.

Finally, we kept an eye on Passion UA’s debut with their new roster, and it wasn’t great… but we think it could have been a lot worse.

While beating Liquid is a low bar, it is a first step that all teams need to take, and taking maps off of the very in-form FUT and Monte is not bad. Granted, every player except the Mongolian played quite poorly, but Senzu being the only consistent performer on the team at least means he wasn’t slowed down too much by the shift in organisation, teammates, language, and continent.

Now we move on to the exciting second stage of the event, with some big changes compared to the first one. It’s still a Swiss-bracket, played online, but this time Spirit and MOUZ are here. Have fun!