Who's left in the ESL 'CS:GO' Pro League finals?
Two days are left in the fourth season of ESL's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Pro League and only six teams remain: SK Gaming, Mousesports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, OpTic Gaming, Cloud9 and Team EnVyUs.
A $600,000 prize pool is on the line this weekend in São Paulo, Brazil, and the champions will take home $200,000 of it on Sunday. Mousesports and SK Gaming automatically qualified for the semifinals matches on Sunday, while the other four teams will compete for the two remaining semis spots on Saturday.
SK Gaming and Ninjas in Pyjamas are two of the best teams at the moment -- SK Gaming is the reining Major champion and the Pro League Season 3 winner, while Ninjas in Pyjamas has been performing well in recent tournament and took first place at StarSeries Season 2.
One of the better match-ups in the playoffs will be Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. SK Gaming in the semifinals -- as long as Ninjas in Pyjamas can beat Team EnVyUs. It wouldn't be a surprise to see either NiP or SK heading to the grand finals.
The other three teams in the playoffs haven't seen much recent success in international tournaments. Cloud9 played well in the online season, but the team doesn't usually perform that well at LAN events. In front of Cloud9 are OpTic Gaming and possibly Mousesports, which aren't known for their LAN play either, so C9 could feasibly end up in the finals.
ESL Pro League Season 4 started with 28 teams that competed in nine weeks of online play. Twelve teams qualified for the finals in Brazil, with Fnatic and Cloud9 finishing the online season in first place in Europe and North America respectively. Fnatic was not able to attend the finals because player Dennis "Dennis" Edman was unable to participate due to personal reasons.
The quarterfinals matches -- Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Team EnVyUs and OpTic Gaming vs. Cloud9 -- start at 2:50 p.m. ET on Saturday. The semifinals start at 11 a.m. ET Sunday, and the grand finals are scheduled to start at 6:50 p.m. ET. You can watch all the action live on the ESL Twitch.
BONUS: Why SK Gaming is favored to win ESL Pro League
