ESL Pro League Season 6

Host

• Oliver James "OJ Borg" Borg D'Anastasi
• Alex "Machine" Richardson

Commentators

• Alex "Snodz" Byfield
• Hugo Byron
• Henry "HenryG" Greer
• Jack "Jacky" Peters
• Harry "JustHarry" Russell
• Lauren "Pansy" Scott
• Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett

Analysts

• Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
• Joona "natu" Leppänen
• Janko "YNk" Paunović

Observers

• Bastian "UnknownFME" Faber
• Alex "Rushly" Rush

The European final standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leaders are shown first.

Fnatic was the first European team to move to the playoffs in Odense after defeating FaZe Clan in two matches. Astralis also clinched a spot after defeating Team EnVyUs in the second game to move on to the playoffs to play in front of its home crowd. With EnVyUs losing, FaZe also clinched a spot despite losing both games to Fnatic. North went on to easily take down Team LDLC.com and BIG to go along with Astralis to its home country. Ninjas in Pyjamas was always floating around in the middle of the pack, but all four matches in week seven helped out the once dominant Swedes to take the fifth spot. HellRaisers would be the surprise team in the top six as it started out the season very poorly, but ended up defeating GODSENT in its last game. Combined with a G2 Esports loss to Fnatic, HellRaisers just about edged its way to the playoffs and G2, the defending EPL champions, settled to seventh place in the season. The Fnatic win also allowed the team to secure the first seed in Europe.

At the bottom of the ladder, BIG ended the season with six straight losses, promptly putting the Germans in last place and demoted to the premier division for next season. LDLC was on the verge of going through the relegation phase, but FaZe defeating Natus Vincere allowed LDLC to stay in eleventh place for the second straight season. Natus Vincere and GODSENT would go on to face the second and third place teams from season 26 of the premier division.

Final Standings
Place	Prize Money	Team	W-L	RF-RA	RD	Pts	Roster	Coach
1st	TBD	Fnatic	18-8	386-303	+83	55	Golden, flusha, JW, KRiMZ, Lekr0	Jumpy
2nd	TBD	North	18-8	373-323	+50	53	MSL, aizy, cajunb, k0nfig, valde	ruggah
3rd	TBD	FaZe Clan	15-11	334-290	+44	47	karrigan, GuardiaN, NiKo, olofmeister, rain	RobbaN
4th	TBD	Astralis	16-10	355-308	+47	47	gla1ve, dev1ce, dupreeh, Kjaerbye, Xyp9x	zonic
5th	TBD	Ninjas in Pyjamas	15-11	370-335	+35	42	Xizt, draken, f0rest, GeT RiGhT, REZ	THREAT
6th	TBD	HellRaisers	13-13	345-334	+11	41	ANGE1, DeadFox, FejtZ, w0xic, ISSAA	Johnta
7th	US$27,000	G2 Esports	13-13	368-361	+7	39	shox, apEX, bodyy, kennyS, NBK-	SmithZz
8th	US$23,000	Team EnVyUs	12-14	341-370	-29	37	Happy, RpK, SIXER, xms, ScreaM	maLeK
9th	US$19,000	mousesports	12-14	349-356	-7	35	chrisJ, oskar, ropz, STYKO, suNny	lmbt
10th	US$17,500	Heroic	11-15	341-381	-40	35	Snappi, es3tag, JUGi, niko, MODDII	peacemaker
11th	US$15,000	Team LDLC.com	11-15	324-390	-66	32	Ex6TenZ, ALEX, DEVIL, Maniac, to1nou	Krav
12th	US$11,500	Natus Vincere	10-16	347-373	-26	30	Zeus, Edward, s1mple, electronic, flamie	kane
13th	US$8,000	GODSENT	9-17	310-380	-70	28	freddieb, dennis, disco doplan, twist, znjader	naSu
14th	US$4,000	BIG	9-17	319-388	-69	25	gob b, keev, nex, tabseN, LEGIJA	kakafu

The biggest change from the European side involved five teams. Denis "seized" Kostin and Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács were removed from the Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) lineup. GuardiaN then joins the FaZe Clan lineup, replacing Aleksi "allu" Jalli as its AWPer. allu later joins OpTic Gaming.^[28] Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko, one of the founding members of Na'Vi's CS:GO team, returns to Na'Vi despite having just won the PGL Major 2017 with Gambit Esports. Zeus cited that if Gambit cut its coach, Mykhailo "kane" Blagin, then Zeus would leave, too. Gambit did cut kane and Zeus followed him to Na'Vi. seized then returns to the active lineup for Na'Vi to complete its five-man roster.^[29] Fnatic and LGB eSports legend Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer stepped down from Fnatic's roster. The HLTV.org's best player of 2015 went on to join FaZe to replace Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey.^[30] Fnatic trades Dennis "dennis" Edman to GODSENT for Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson. GODSENT co-founder Markus "pronax" Wallsten is replaced by Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi for the season. Fredrik "freddieb" Buö is then officially signed by GODSENT as its new in-game leader after transferring over from Epsilon eSports.^[31][32] Maikil "Golden" Selim is the promoted from Fnatic Academy to the main roster as in-game leader and Fnatic fills out its roster.^[33] Near the end of the regular season, seized steps down from Na'Vi's active roster and is temporarily replaced by Aleksey "1uke" Zimin; seizes cited the pressure to perform well had taken a toll on him, but his performance was lackluster, even after Zeus had come in to take the big responsibility of in-game leader from seized's shoulders.^[34] Later, Na'Vi acquired FlipSid3 Tactics star Denis "electronic" Sharipov and loaned seized to FlipSdi3.^[35]

Heroic replace Valdemar "valde" Bjørn Vangså with Patrick "es3tag" Hansen.^[36] North then removed Magisk from its roster and add valde; Magisk then joins OpTic Gaming in North America.^[37] Ninjas in Pyjamas move friberg to its inactive roster and replace him with Fredrik "REZ" Sterner from Epsilon eSports; friberg joins Magisk and allu to OpTic's roster.^[38]

mousesports release Christian "loWel" Antoran and longtime mousesports player Denis "denis" Howell from the lineup and replace them with former HellRaisers player Martin "STYKO" Styk and former PENTA Sports member Miikka "suNny" Kemppi.^[39] Also, Vladyslav "bondik" Nechyporchuk is dropped from the HellRaisers lineup and went on loan to the Chinese team TyLoo and trial Özgür "w0xic" Eker from Turkey and Issa "ISSAA" Murad from Jordan.^[40] Patrik "Zero" Žúdel later went inactive after citing a lack of confidence and HellRaisers playing poorly. HellRaisers signed Kristjan "FejtZ" Allsaar to take Zero's place.^[41]

Team LDLC.com replace Valentin "mistou" Balbastro with former Team EnVyUs rifler Timothée "DEVIL" Démolon.^[42]

The finalized teams are shown below. Each team's world ranking for December 4, 2017 is also shown.

North America OpTic Gaming (16) SK Gaming (1) Team Liquid (10) NRG Esports (26) Misfits (23) Luminosity Gaming (24)	Europe Fnatic (12) North (7) FaZe Clan (2) Astralis (3) Ninjas in Pyjamas (4) HellRaisers (22)

Between the end of the regular season and the playoffs, a few changes took place. Immortals loaned Ricardo "boltz" Prass to SK Gaming as João "felps" Vasconcellos asked to leave the team as the young star cited missing family back home in Brazil, a lack of confidence in playing, and not being very accustomed to the new role he was assigned when he joined SK, as he was an entry fragger when he was on Immortals but played the more passive lurker role upon joining SK. This would be the second time the SK roster would make a change before an EPL Final. During EPL Season 2, when the core of SK was with Luminosity Gaming, SK swapped out boltz and Lucas "steel" Lopes in favor of the Counter-Strike veteran Lincoln "fnx" Lau and the unknown Epitacio "TACO" de Melo.^[43] In addition, Team Liquid and Immortals agreed to transfer steel from the Brazilian team to the American team as Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz was benched as stanislaw claimed that he and Team Liquid's coach and former Immortals player and SK Gaming coach Wilton "zews" Prado disagreed on strategies in the game. However, EPL rules did not allow steel to play with Liquid for the Finals, then zews stepped in to fill the gap while steel took zew's spot as the coach.^[44] Astralis also had a last minute change, as Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz still out with an unknown sickness. The Danes would use the Norwegian and ex-North player Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel for the event.^[45]

Host

• Oliver James "OJ Borg" Borg Anastasi

Desk host

• Alex "Machine" Richardson

Backstage reporter

• Tres "stunna" Saranthus

Commentators

• Hugo Byron
• Alex "Snodz" Byfield
• Henry "HenryG" Greer
• Vince Hill¹
• Jason "moses" O'Toole
• Jack "Jacky" Peters
• Harry "JustHarry" Russell
• Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett

Analysts

• Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
• Janko "YNk" Paunović
• Jacob "Pimp" Winneche

Observers

• Bastian "UnknownFME" Faber
• Alex "Rushly" Rush

¹Lauren "Pansy" Scott was scheduled to cast at the event with moses, but had to sit out due to suspected food poisoning. Vince Hill took her spot.

With the new group pairing method, teams will choose one opponent they want to avoid in the group stage; the team that is chosen will be placed in the opposite group of the team that chose it. The selection took place on November 22, 2017. Groups were separated in a yellow group and a red group.^[46]

• Fnatic chose to be in the yellow group as the first seed (Y1), so OpTic Gaming was the first seed for the red group (R1).
• Fnatic chose SK Gaming as R2.
• OpTic Gaming chose FaZe Clan as Y2.
• SK Gaming chose Astralis as Y3.
• FaZe Clan chose North as R3.
• Astralis chose Ninjas in Pyjamas as R4.
• North chose Team Liquid as Y4.
• Ninjas in Pyjamas chose HellRaisers as Y5.
• Team Liquid chose Misfits as R5.
• HellRaisers chose NRG Esports as R6.
• Misfits, by default, was left with choosing Luminosity Gaming as Y6.

Although Fnatic took the top spot in Europe during the regular season, FaZe Clan and Astralis were the clear favorites to top the group in Odense. However, Astralis would not be at the event with its star AWPer dev1ce, as he was on medical leave. Team Liquid would also be crippled as it could not use its newly acquired player steel and would be forced to play at the event with its coach zews. Fnatic was unproven to be a threat on LAN after the departure of dennis and olofmeister, but still managed to take the number one seed in both EPL and ECS. HellRaisers and Luminosity Gaming were both unproven teams, but both managed to sneak their way into the LAN finals. HellRaisers still had a relatively new roster as three of its five players were relatively new to the international scene. Luminosity came into the finals as the least likely to win the tournament, but the team was improving at a quick rate and proved its worth in North America as it beat out the world's number one in SK Gaming for the last spot at the ECS Season 4 Finals in Cancún. With all this, FaZe would be the clear favorites to run away with the group while the last two event would be up for grabs.

Pos	Team	W-L	OT W-L	RF	RA	RD	Pts
1	FaZe Clan	4-0	0-1	79	54	+25	13
2	HellRaisers	3-1	0-1	70	54	+3	10
3	Fnatic	2-1	2-0	69	66	-7	8
4	Luminosity Gaming	1-3	1-0	68	67	+1	5
5	Astralis	1-3	0-1	56	75	-19	4
6	Team Liquid	0-3	1-1	53	79	-26	3

Group Yellow matches
Team	Score	Map	Score	Team
Fnatic	19	Inferno	15	FaZe Clan
HellRaisers	23	Cache	25	Luminosity Gaming
Astralis	20	Mirage	22	Team Liquid
Fnatic	5	Inferno	16	HellRaisers
FaZe Clan	16	Mirage	14	Team Liquid
Astralis	16	Train	11	Luminosity Gaming
Fnatic	16	Cobblestone	13	Luminosity Gaming
Team Liquid	4	Inferno	16	HellRaisers
FaZe Clan	16	Mirage	5	Astralis
Fnatic	22	Mirage	18	Team Liquid
Astralis	13	Overpass	16	HellRaisers
FaZe Clan	16	Train	12	Luminosity Gaming
FaZe Clan	16	Overpass	7	HellRaisers
Fnatic	16	Inferno	7	Astralis
Team Liquid	4	Cache	16	Luminosity Gaming

The first few matches started out unexpectedly as the three teams that were most likely not going to be in the top three were in the top three as upsets came in from all over the place in the first four matches. However, things started to settle down, but HellRaisers still managed to top the group by the end of the day, while FaZe Clan struggled in its two matches after losing in overtime to Fnatic and barely scraping past Team Liquid.

FaZe showed what it was really capable of in the second day, as it breezed through competition, only somewhat struggling against Luminosity while stomping Astralis and Liquid. Fnatic had some signs of being its vintage self in the group stage as the team only suffered one loss. HellRaisers snagged the second seed in the group after taking down Astralis after upsetting a few teams. Luminosity exceeded expectations after garnering two wins and putting up close fights in its three losses, but Brazil's current second best team was out at fourth place. Meanwhile, Astralis and Liquid both struggled massively as both teams were crippled, as Astralis was without its star AWPer and Liquid was without one of the best lurkers in North America.

In its last season in North America, OpTic Gaming left with a bang after taking the first seed in the league. However, in the few LAN appearances the team made, OpTic struggled as it failed to come out of the Boston Europe Minor, lost to Renegades in iBUYPOWER Masters, and were trounced by SK Gaming at IEM Oakland. SK Gaming had much more success after acquiring boltz on loan; it made the semifinals at IEM Oakland, won EPICENTER 2017, and came back from a 0–9 deficit against Astralis to win BLAST Pro Series. North had been relatively quiet in recent, as it could not make the playoffs the last two tournaments it went to. Ninjas in Pyjamas surprised everyone after defeating SK Gaming and FaZe Clan, the clear top two at the time, at IEM Oakland to win the tournament, but it was perhaps more of a fluke as it bombed out of the group stage at BLAST Pro Series and failed to make the major for the third straight time. Misfits was a new face at the EPL Finals, as sgares finally started showing signs of leading his team to the top of North America once again, as he was the captain of the team that was arguably the best team North America had ever seen, with qualifications at the EPL Finals and the Boston Major qualifier; however, the lack of experience might set the team back. NRG Esports would be the known as the team that would always so well online, but would always fail to do anything on the big stage. Despite this being NRG's third straight appearance at an EPL final, the team was expected to go out of the tournament in last place. SK Gaming would be the clear favorite to take the group, but the Brazilians have always struggled in the robin round group stages, as they would always do well one day and then do horribly the next day. North was also another favorite to make it out of the group stage while the last spot would need to be fought for.

Pos	Team	W-L	OT W-L	RF	RA	RD	Pts
1	SK Gaming	4-1	0-0	78	48	+30	12
2	OpTic Gaming	3-2	0-0	73	59	+14	9
3	Misfits	3-2	0-0	65	65	0	9
4	NRG Esports	2-3	0-0	55	71	-16	6
5	Ninjas in Pyjamas	1-3	1-0	61	67	-6	5
6	North	1-3	0-1	56	78	-22	4

Group Red matches
Team	Score	Map	Score	Team
SK Gaming	16	Overpass	7	North
Misfits	16	Overpass	11	NRG Esports
OpTic Gaming	14	Cobblestone	16	Ninjas in Pyjamas
North	9	Cobblestone	16	Misfits
OpTic Gaming	16	Mirage	14	SK Gaming
Ninjas in Pyjamas	14	Overpass	16	NRG Esports
North	9	Mirage	16	NRG Esports
OpTic Gaming	16	Overpass	10	Misfits
SK Gaming	16	Overpass	9	Ninjas in Pyjamas
OpTic Gaming	11	Overpass	16	North
Ninjas in Pyjamas	13	Overpass	16	Misfits
SK Gaming	16	Cache	9	NRG Esports
SK Gaming	16	Cache	7	Misfits
North	15	Inferno	19	Ninjas in Pyjamas
OpTic Gaming	16	Cobblestone	3	NRG Esports

The season 5 runner-up struggled immensely as it failed to put up double digits against any team, including against the two worst ranked teams in the tournament. North going 0-3 almost guaranteed that the Danes would not play in front of its home crowd in the playoffs. Meanwhile, NRG Esports surprised everyone by defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) and North after not winning a single game in its two previous EPL finals. Misfits also did well after defeating NRG and upsetting North. OpTic Gaming upset SK Gaming and put up a fight against NiP and also ran away with a win against Misfits in the late stages of the game. SK easily defeated North, but fell short to OpTic. OpTic, NRG, and Misfits ended up on top at the end of day one when all three teams were projected to be at the bottom of the barrel.

SK strayed away from its old self as it dominated the second day of the robin round rather than struggling like FalleN's squad usually does. The team won all three games it played to easily take the top seed in the group. Misfits continued to roll through as it upset NiP in regulation, officially eliminating NiP and clinching a spot in the playoffs. With NRG's loss to SK and OpTic's loss to North, the last spot would be decided in the final map, which pitted the last two contenders. There, OpTic dominated the field to advance to the playoffs and eliminated NRG. North did much better in the second day, but garnering zero wins in the first day hurt the Danes massively; when Misfits defeated NiP, this guaranteed that only two Danes would play in front of the home crowd, as Astralis was eliminated in the first group, North was eliminated early, and NRG – which had the Dane Allan "AnJ" Jensen – was eliminated by OpTic. Finn "karrigan" Andersen from FaZe and Emil "Magisk" Reif from OpTic would be the only Danes to play in front of Odense's crowd. NiP got some consolation by defeating North, but the final three was set in the end.

Round of 6

Semifinals

Finals

Y1

FaZe Clan

2

R2

OpTic Gaming

1

Y3

Fnatic

0

Y3

Fnatic

2

Y1

FaZe Clan

1

R1

SK Gaming

3

R1

SK Gaming

2

Y2

HellRaisers

0

R3

Misfits

0

R3

Misfits

2

The first game in front of the Odense crowd was a thriller as it pitted the newly formed OpTic Gaming against the legendary team of Fnatic. OpTic managed to come back from a relatively weak first half to winning the last ten of twelve rounds to take game one. In game two, KRiMZ showed his old self again as he dominated and held down OpTic on the counter-terrorist side as he and flusha dominated the first half, allowing Fnatic to take the second game. In the third game, despite HS's performance, everyone on Fnatic helped out as the strong start to the second half proved to be just enough to eliminate OpTic from the tournament.

The two surprises of the tournament faced off in the second quarterfinals. The first game was a marathon, but Misfits was able to pull through in double overtime to take the first map. The second map was a struggle for HellRaisers as it was swept out by Misfits's offense in the second half to allow Misfits to earn a trip against SK Gaming.

Round of 6 scores
Team	Score	Map	Score	Team
OpTic Gaming	16	Inferno	14	Fnatic
OpTic Gaming	10	Train	16	Fnatic
OpTic Gaming	14	Mirage	16	Fnatic
HellRaisers	18	Cobblestone	22	Misfits
HellRaisers	6	Overpass	16	Misfits
HellRaisers	–	Cache	–	Misfits

karrigan played very well compared to his normal playstyle with all the Danes watching him live; combined with his strategies and all the firepower he had around him, karrigan was able to easily take down olofmeister's old team with relative ease on both maps. Although flusha continued to do well at the event, KRiMZ could not find the same form he did yesterday against OpTic.

Misfits started its semifinals strong as it took a 3–0 lead, but SK never gave the Americans and French to breathe again as it dominated in almost every facet of the first game. The second game was a complete stomp by SK despite starting on the less-favored side, as the only round Misfits got was off of a lucky shot off of ShahZaM when he got two kills with one shot. SK sent the Misfits home.

Semifinals scores
Team	Score	Map	Score	Team
FaZe Clan	16	Mirage	7	Fnatic
FaZe Clan	16	Overpass	10	Fnatic
FaZe Clan	–	Inferno	–	Fnatic
SK Gaming	16	Cobblestone	6	Misfits
SK Gaming	16	Overpass	1	Misfits
SK Gaming	–	Cache	–	Misfits

The final matchup was the expected one. This tournament was the second to last tournament of the year (ECS Season 4 being the last event) before the designated player break before the major. However, this would be SK's last tournament of the year as it failed to make the top four in North America of ECS, placing fifth. FaZe did qualify for the ECS finals, but the team had to play in the major qualifier as it bombed out of groups in the last major. This final would also possibly decide which team would take the spot for the best team of the year, as the two teams continually went back and forth for the number one spot.

karrigan had never defeated FalleN in any series more than a best of one, and he had a great opportunity to start strong on Inferno as the map had always been one of SK's weakest. However, SK made the game close and the last few rounds went back and forth between the two teams. However, FaZe prevailed in the map it should have won comfortably on to take the early series lead. Overpass was the second map and it was a map in which karrigan had never defeated FalleN on in the history between the two captains and that trend continued as SK's counter-terrorist side shut down FaZe's offense to tie the series at one. FaZe was expected to take Mirage, especially since SK lost to OpTic in the group stage. However, SK completely dominated the map as much of FaZe struggled. FaZe showed some life in the second half, but it was too late to do much with SK's huge lead. Train was the next map and SK once completely dominated the map when it had Lincoln "fnx" Lau on the team and many of those games included not allowing a single round on its counter-terrorist side, including a 16–0 against G2 Esports. The 8–0 lead that SK took eventually was whittled down to an 8–7 lead as rain was holding the team together throughout the half. After FaZe took a lead, SK took it back, but FaZe sent the game into overtime. SK eventually won out the overtime and the tournament to take its second EPL title. FalleN continued his win streak against karrigan as well.

Finals scores
Team	Score	Map	Score	Team
FaZe Clan	16	Inferno	13	SK Gaming
FaZe Clan	11	Overpass	16	SK Gaming
FaZe Clan	9	Mirage	16	SK Gaming
FaZe Clan	16	Train	19	SK Gaming
FaZe Clan	–	Cache	–	SK Gaming

Final Standings
Place	Prize Money	Team
1st	US$225,000	SK Gaming
2nd	US$100,000	FaZe Clan
3rd – 4th	US$60,000	Fnatic
		Misfits
5th – 6th	US$45,000	HellRaisers
		OpTic Gaming
7th – 8th	US$40,000	Luminosity Gaming
		NRG Esports
9th – 10th	US$35,000	Astralis
		Ninjas in Pyjamas
11th – 12th	US$32,500	North
		Team Liquid