XSE Pro League 2026: Preview

With the IEM Cologne 2026 Major done and dusted, Chinese organizer XinSai Esports will kick off the year's second season with XSE Pro League 2026. The tournament begins tomorrow, 1st July 2026 and will go on for nearly a couple of weeks, ending on 12th July 2026.

XSE Pro League 2026 will feature a total of sixteen teams in the group stage which is set to play out as a Swiss system iteration. At the moment, the tournament is categorized as an A-tier event with teams like FaZe, PARIVISION, BetBoom, B8 and BIG among others. The top eight from the group stage will advance to the single-elimination bracket playoffs where a best-of-five grand-final crowns the winner.

XSE Pro League 2026 opening matches

• FaZe vs TYLOO (01/07/2026 | 12:30 PM IST)

• NiP vs 3DMAX (01/07/2026 | 12:30 PM IST)

• 9z vs EYEBALLERS (01/07/2026 | 01:30 PM IST)

• Monte vs Nemesis (01/07/2026 | 01:30 PM IST)

• PARIVISION vs Alliance (01/07/2026 | 02:30 PM IST)

• BetBoom vs Sinners (01/07/2026 | 02:30 PM IST)

• BIG vs Lynn Vision (01/07/2026 | 03:30 PM IST)

• B8 vs MIBR (01/07/2026 | 03:30 PM IST)

Home teams TYLOO and Lynn Vision square up against FaZe and BIG in their opening round's matches. TYLOO's last head-to-head against FaZe led to the Chinese side ending up eliminating TYLOO from BLAST Open Rotterdam 2026 and bagging a massive amount of VRS to leap towards the IEM Cologne 2026 invites range. At the time, FaZe were ranked #11 in the world and karrigan was still calling the shots.

The new FaZe lineup with Neityu and JBOEN will be in action at XSE Pro League 2026, looking to prepare for Major contention in the second season of 2026. XSE Pro League 2026 will take place in Guangzhou, China and will carry a prize pool of $1,000,000 USD. The tournament organizer took to X earlier to today to announce that XSE Pro League 2026 will feature the new map pool with Cache replacing Overpass.

XSE Pro League 2026