Welcome to BESL Pro Season 4
GUESS WHO’S BACK, BACK AGAIN
BESL PRO IS BACK, WITH NEW SEASON’
Today we proudly announce the arrival of BESL Pro Season 4! With us receiving a ton of positive feedback for the previous season’s format change, this time around we’ve decided to just stick to what has been working rather than trying to re-invent the wheel.
In short - no major changes have been done to how the League operates and it’s still pretty much the same old BESL Pro competition that you enjoyed last season! However, one thing that is not going to be the same is our broadcasts, but more on that later.
Teams
As per usual, let’s start with our competitors! The number of teams this season has not changed from the previous one - BESL Pro Season 4 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 earning at least 2 victories in the Season 3 swiss group stage:
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1337HUANIA
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wolsung
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WORTEX
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FiGURE05
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Lamp
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MAKONGA
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ayned
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alltheRAGE
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Team Titan
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coluant
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LESGEDI
The 5 remaining teams are going to be found via qualifiers (read more about them further down below). In a scenario where one or more teams from this list decide to not take part in the upcoming season of BESL Pro, a replacement team is going to be called upon from the 12th-16th place team pool of Season 3.
Format
As mentioned before, this time around there are no major changes to how we operate and thus the format of BESL Pro Season 4 has remained the same. Just like last season, we’re gonna start off our competition with 5 weeks of best-of-three swiss groups followed up by 2 weeks of single-elimination best-of-three playoffs.
The only minor change in regards to the format is that this season both the ¼ finals and the ½ finals are going be played out online, meaning that only the 2 best teams are going to travel to the LAN Finals at HyperTown in order to decide upon a champion in a best-of-five duel.
With that in mind, this season’s 7-week 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 - All four ¼ final matches
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7th week - Both the ½ final matches
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 about the format visit our Rulebook.
Prize pool
The prize pool of our competition for Season 4 has not changed from the previous one and teams once again are going to be competing for the lion share of the €9,000 prize pool!
However, with the change of only 2 teams traveling to the LAN finals at HyperTown, the prize money distribution has been made a bit more top-heavy than before.
The €9,000 Season 4 prize pool is going to be distributed as follows:
1st place - €3,000
2nd place - €1,500
3rd-4th place - €750
5th-8th place - €400
9th-11th place - €250
12th-14th place - €150
15th-16th place - €100
Team relegation and LAN Finals
Just like last time, at the end of the season, the bottom 5 teams are going to be relegated from BESL Pro. 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.
As for the Season 4 LAN Finals - due to event logistics, this time around the event is going to feature only the 2 best teams from the online stage. Accordingly, teams that are going to reach the grand final of the playoff bracket are going to the LAN finals.
The LAN Finals event is going to be located in Estonia with the HyperTown EXPO once again traveling back to Saku Suurhall arena (Tallinn) with the event taking place on 23rd and 24th of November!
Season 4 calendar and qualifier details
BESL Pro Season 4 calendar looks as following:
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Open qualifier #1 - 18.08 14:00 Baltic time (registration open from 05.08 till 17.08)
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Open qualifier #2 - 01.09 14:00 Baltic time (registration open from 19.08 till 31.08)
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Last chance qualifier - 08.09 14:00 Baltic time (registration open from 02.09 till 07.09)
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Regular season - 23.09-10.11 (7 weeks)
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LAN Finals - 23.11
As for the details of the qualifiers:
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Qualifiers are played on FACEIT using Single Elimination Bo3 format;
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Qualifier entry fee is 25 EUR per team;
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Maximum number of participants for the open qualifiers is set to 16 teams, whereas the last chance qualifier is going to feature 8 teams;
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The 2 best teams (teams that reach the grand final) from each of the open qualifiers and the winner (1 team) of the last chance qualifier is going to secure a spot in the BESL Pro Season 4.
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Only teams that consist of a minimum of 3 players from Baltic states are eligible to participate. Read more about player eligibility in our Rulebook.
In order to register your team for a qualifier, you have to:
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Visit besl.pro webpage;
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Register an account;
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Create a team via ‘My team’ section;
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Invite your teammates to your team;
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Pay the qualifier entry-fee via ‘My team’ page;
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Remember that everyone on your team has to link their Steam account to their profile via ‘Profile Settings’ in order to be eligible to participate.
After you have paid the qualifier entry-fee a pop-up window with an invite link to BESL Pro Qualifier Discord server will appear. Join the Discord server and follow instructions there to complete your registration. Additionally, this Discord server is also going to be used as a communication tool between admins and participants during the qualifiers.
Season 4 game broadcasts
As mentioned in our opening statement - this season’s broadcasts will not be the same as they were before! Starting from BESL Pro Season 4 we’re expanding our broadcast team to cater to all three Baltic state countries!
What does that mean? Instead of you having one single broadcast in English, this season we’re going to bring you multiple streams with each of them happening in one of the Baltic state country languages - Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian! However, for the LAN finals, we’re going to transition back into having one English broadcast in order to cater to a broader audience of viewers.
How will that work exactly?
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Our original broadcast team that operates in the studio in Riga is going to transition from English to Latvian and is going to bring you one best-of-three game every single Saturday (just like before). Matches with Latvian teams in them are going to be prioritized for this broadcast.
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As for Lithuanian and Estonian broadcasts - for the duration of the regular season, we’re going to have community casters from both Lithuania and Estonian that are going to follow their respective country teams no matter the day of the week.
We at BESL Pro believe that this is a necessary step in order to furthermore build the competitive narratives between Baltic state countries and their respective players/teams. Additionally, this should help our participants stimulate the development of their local fan-bases.
As for which games exactly will be featured on each of the broadcasts:
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The Latvian broadcast is going to decide upon a game to watch with a vote between our casters and league head admin, who will also post a poll on his Twitter to get a better understanding of what the audience wants.
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The Lithuanian and Estonian broadcasts are going to feature games chosen by community casters, who will also post a poll on their twitter accounts in order to get a better understanding of what the audience wants.
*the talent crew for all three broadcasts is going to be announced at a later date.
Each of the broadcasts is going to have a separate channel on both Twitch and YouTube.
[NEW] SKILL CONTEST
While we’re waiting for the actual season to start, we introduce you to a new feature on our webpage - Skill Contest! Want to prove that you are the most skilled player in Baltic states and win a brand new Samsung Gaming monitor while doing so? Then Skill Contest is the place for you!
Follow our social media pages for more information about the upcoming season:
News by: Bruno ‘Gekons’ Gailītis
