Welcome to BESL Pro Season 3!
THE LONG WAIT IS OVER! Today we proudly announce the arrival of Baltic eSports League’s third season! This time around you’re not going to be swept off your feet by bunch of minor changes rather than one major one that is going to impact everything else along the way.
“Hey Mr. BESL Pro, what’s the change?” you may ask! Well folks, Season 3 of our competition is going be played out in a completely different format than the two previous ones!
Enough of chit-chatting, let’s talk details!
Teams
Let’s start with our competitors! The amount of teams this season has not changed from the previous one. Season 3 of Baltic eSports League is going to once again feature 16 teams from all three Baltic state countries.
With that being said, here is the list of teams that have maintained their spot in the league by placing in the top 12 of Season 2:
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wolsung
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XGR eSports
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1337HUANIA
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The 4 remaining teams are going to be decided via the open qualifiers (read more about them further down below). In a scenario where one or more teams from this list decide to not participate in Season 3, a replacement team is going to be called upon from the 13th-16th place team pool of Season 2 based on their final standings.
Format
This is the section you have all been waiting for - the BESL Pro Season 3 format!
During the off-season we had the time to take a little bit of a breather and reflect at the two previous season of our competition. The main conclusion that we made was that the traditional league format (round-robin) has to go as it is not only long and exhausting for the participants, but also, it has a very poor foundation for building a storyline for our viewers.
With that in mind, this season we had the desire to spice things up and bring something new to the table that would reignite the motivation for competitors to fight for every single game they’re playing, while also providing our viewers with games that have clearly visible impact on team’s storyline and the event as a whole.
At this point some of you might’ve already guessed it, but for those who haven’t - Season 3 of Baltic eSports League is going to be played out using the Swiss format for the group stage, while transitioning to the playoff bracket a bit earlier than the LAN finals. Yes, the same Swiss format that is used in the VALVE Majors! And, for those of you wondering - all the games are going to be played as Best-of-three series!
The change in format also comes with a slight decrease in the length of the online games and this season teams are going to be competing for 7 weeks instead of the 8 weeks that Season 2 had.
The aforementioned 7 weeks of competition looks as following:
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1st week - Swiss group stage round 1
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2nd week - Swiss group stage round 2
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3rd week - Swiss group stage round 3
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4th week - Swiss group stage round 4
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5th week - Swiss group stage round 5
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6th week - First two quarter-final games
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7th week - Remaining two quarter-final games
First time hearing about Swiss format and wondering what it is?
The initial round of Swiss format consists of 16 teams being matched up against each other in 8 duels. After the initial matches are over, the next round draw takes place, matching teams with the same W-L record against one another.
This means that teams that won their first match (1-0) are going to be matched up against other teams that also won their first match, while teams that lost their first match (0-1) are going to be paired with teams that also lost their debut game.
This sequence goes on for 5 rounds of matches until there are 8 teams that proceed to playoffs and 8 teams that are eliminated. The rule for advancing or being eliminated is very simple - win 3 games and you’re in the playoffs, lose 3 games and you’re out!
Feel free to check out THIS image to better understand how the Swiss format group stage is done.
For more details on this season’s format visit our Season 3 Rulebook.
Prize pool
The prize pool of our competition for Season 3 has not changed from the previous season and teams once again are going to be competing for the lion share of the €9,000 prize pool!
However, with the change in format the prize money distribution has changed and this season it’s going to be a bit more top-heavy.
The €9,000 Season 3 prize pool is going to be distributed as following:
1st place - €2,500
2nd place - €1,500
3rd-4th place - €1000
5th-8th place - €400
9th-11th place - €250
12th-14th place - €150
15th-16th place - €100
Team relegation and LAN Finals
With our competition now switching over to Swiss format for the group stage, we have once again increased the amount of teams being relegated from the League at the end of the season from bottom 4 to bottom 5.
This means that teams that are eliminated from the Swiss group stage with win-loss records of 0-3 and 1-3 do not get a guaranteed slot for the next season of BESL Pro. We believe that this will ensure a bigger, more healthier rotation of teams from season to season in the long run.
As for the Season 3 LAN Finals - the event is once again going to feature the top 4 teams of the online set of games! Accordingly, teams that are going to reach the semi-finals of the playoff bracket are going to LAN finals.
This time around the LAN Finals are going to be located in Latvia, with the HyperTown EXPO now traveling back to Kipsala exhibition center (Riga) with the event itself taking place from 31st of May to 2nd of June!
Season 3 calendar and qualifier details
BESL Pro Season 3 calendar looks as following:
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Open qualifier #1 - 03.03 14:00 Baltic time (registration open from 04.02 till 02.03)
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Open qualifier #2 - 17.03 14:00 Baltic time (registration open from 25.02 till 16.03)
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Regular season - 01.04-19.05 (7 weeks)
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LAN Finals - 31.05-02.06
As for the details of the qualifiers:
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As you can see - there are once again going to be 2 open qualifiers both having an entry-fee of 25 EUR per team and a total participant limit set at 16 teams for each of the qualifiers;
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To register your team for an open qualifier you have to visit besl.pro webpage, register an account, create a team via ‘My team’ section, invite your teammates to your team and pay the qualifier entry-fee via ‘My team’ page. Remember that everyone has to link their Steam accounts to their profiles via ‘Profile Settings’ in order to be eligible to participate;
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After you have paid the qualifier entry-fee a pop-up window will open within whom you will find an invitation link to BESL Pro Qualifier Discord server that is going to be used for communication purposes during the qualifier;
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Both the qualifiers are going to be played out on FACEIT platform using a Single Elimination Bo3 format;
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The 2 best teams (teams that reach the grand final) from each of the qualifiers are going to acquire a spot in the third season of the BESL Pro.
Remember - in order to participate in our competitions a minimum of 3 (out of the 5) players on each team have to be from Baltic states, otherwise the team is not eligible to participate.
Season 3 streams and casters
With the competition now switching to Swiss format, we’ve also made changes to the way we’re going to showcase our event. In the first two seasons of our competition we either covered all the games or majority of them on our streams.
However, this season we’re going to go for quality over quantity as we do understand that not every single game attracts the same level of interest from our viewers. With that being said, during the Season 3 online portion of games we’re going to cover one best-of-three series per week.
The said duel is going to be chosen by four votes:
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both CS:GO casters (2 votes)
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CS:GO Head admin (1 vote)
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YOU GUYS! (1 vote)
Yes, you read that correctly! This time around you guys have an impact on what games you (as our viewers) want to see on the next broadcast.
Each week on Sunday there is going to be a post on our facebook announcing all the matchups for the upcoming week and you’re going to be able to vote for the match that you want to see on next stream. After that, on Monday we’re going to announce the match that was chosen in result of all these four votes being combined.
The broadcast itself is going to air every Saturday with coverage from all three BESL Pro Season 3 disciplines (CS:GO, PUBG and Rocket League). On stream you’re going to be greeted by our studio hosts who are going to run the show all throughout the day with giving their insights on the games happening in a relaxed and entertaining manner. Though, once we hop into the CS:GO game itself, our lovely caster duo of Renārs “Emvy” Dzintars and Renārs “Veneficus” Šēnfelds are going to take over!
This season we’re going to broadcast the stream on two platforms - YouTube and Twitch! Be sure to follow our channel in the platform of your choice in order to not miss any action!
Follow our social media pages for more information about the upcoming season:
News by: Bruno ‘Gekons’ Gailītis
