by The ESL Pro League is one of the featured tournaments on the Counter-Strike 2 esports calendar, and the 19th season is set to kick off on April 23 with 32 teams seeking EPL glory over three weeks of competition.
With a US$170,000 winners’ cheque and a spot at IEM Cologne 2024 up for grabs, each squad will be striving to play their best Counter-Strike throughout the event.
Esports betting sites have FaZe Clan as $3.50 tournament favourites, closely followed by Team Vitality and Natus Vincere at $4.00 apiece. G2 Esports ($5.00), MOUZ ($5.50), Astralis ($8.00) and Virtus.pro ($9.00) round out the teams marked under double figures.
Here is our ESL Pro League Season 19 betting preview and outright picks, with odds courtesy of the best CS2 betting sites.
Natus Vincere ESL Pro League S19 predictions
Group D kicks off on May 1 with Natus Vincere competing in their first tournament since winning the PGL Major Copenhagen title. NaVi surprised a lot of people by going all the way at the first CS2 Major, as they defeated G2 Esports and FaZe Clan in the final two series to claim victory in Denmark. Since winning the Major, NaVi have had time to rest and practice ahead of ESL Pro League Season 19, unlike most of their rivals, who had to travel to China for IEM Chengdu earlier this month.
After Justinas “jL” Lekavicius, Valerij “b1t” Vakhovsjkyj, and Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov played some of their best Counter-Strike on the biggest stage, their confidence will be sky high coming into this event. Group D appears to be the weakest of the four, and NaVi should have no problems qualifying for the quarterfinals after topping their group.
Outright winner: Natus Vincere
Astralis ESL Pro League S19 predictions
Taking over as in-game leader before IEM Chengdu, Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz led his young squad to third-fourth place in China. Although the world number 11 fell to FaZe Clan in the semifinals, the Danish roster defeated FaZe Clan comprehensively during the group stage and accounted for Virtus.pro in the quarterfinals.
Given their recent history against VP and FaZe, Astralis can win Group A and book a spot in the playoffs early on. Martin “stavn” Lund and Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard are settling in nicely since joining from Heroic late last year, and if they can help carry the load with dev1ce on this roster, Astralis can return to the top of the world rankings.
