ESL Pro League S23 Stage 2: Preview

The ESL Pro League Season 23 enters its second stage after eight teams made it through Stage 1. FUT took down Astralis and Legacy took down PARIVISION to clear the first stage 3-0. While Astralis recovered and made it through the 3-1 pool, PARIVISION took a tumble going from 2-0 to 2-3, crashing out of Stage 1 after losses to MONTE and HEROIC who also cleared the first stage. Despite slacking off in the middle G2, 3DMAX and paIN recovered and booked their Stage 2 slots.

Stage 2 of the ESL Pro League Season 23 begins today with NAVI taking on MONTE and Astralis locking in a FUT rematch in the first set of games. The MongolZ are the only Asian team in the second stage and will kick off their campaign against paIN at 09:00 PM IST today. In their last encounter, The MongolZ handed paIN a 1-2 loss, including a crushing 1-13 defeat on Mirage to send them down to the 0-1 pool at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026.

Stage 2 of ESL Pro League Season 23 will host a Swiss system best-of-three sending the top eight teams into a single-elimination bracket playoffs that concludes with a best-of-five grand-final. In Stage 2, teams are required to win three matches to make it into the playoffs while teams with three losses are eliminated. Stages 1 and 2 of the event are running online with the playoffs set to take place on LAN in Stockholm. Here are the opening matchups for the second stage of ESL Pro League S23:

ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 2

Bo3

The MongolZ

2 - 0

paiN

StatisticsOverview

All maps

The MongolZ	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Ayush 'mzinho' Batbold	45 - 41	+4	88.9	74.1%	1.19
Usukhbayar '910' Banzragch	45 - 38	+7	77.6	75.9%	1.15
Sodbayar 'Techno' Munkhbold	38 - 41	-3	70.1	77.6%	1.15
Anarbileg 'cobrazera' Uuganbayar	40 - 40	+0	75.0	74.1%	1.07
Garidmagnai 'bLitz' Byambasuren	42 - 42	+0	72.7	65.5%	1.03

paiN	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Lucas 'nqz' Soares	43 - 43	+0	74.3	74.1%	1.12
Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira	41 - 38	+3	72.1	77.6%	1.07
Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt	41 - 45	-4	81.0	70.7%	1.07
Guilherme 'piriajr' Barbosa	39 - 43	-4	83.2	72.4%	1.00
João 'snow' Vinicius	37 - 42	-5	64.1	69.0%	0.86

Maps

19

Nuke

17

13

Mirage

9

91033 kills

Most kills

9101.35 rating

Best rating

nqz1.33 rating

Best t-side

9101.51 rating

Best ct-side

Nuke Rounds

mzinho23 kills

Most kills

mzinho1.72 rating

Best rating

mzinho1.44 rating

Best t-side

mzinho2.06 rating

Best ct-side

Mirage Rounds