Eternal Fire, MIBR reach semis at ESL Pro League Season 20

Eternal Fire and MIBR became the first two teams to advance to the semifinals of the ESL Pro League Season 20 by winning their quarterfinal matches on Thursday in Saint Julian's, Malta.

Eternal Fire earned two big overtime wins to oust Team Vitality 2-1, while MIBR swept M80 2-0.

The losing teams were eliminated from the single-elimination playoff bracket, and there are two more quarterfinal matches slated for Friday: G2 Esports vs. Team Liquid and Natus Vincere vs. Team Spirit.

The group stage of the $750,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event divided 32 teams into four groups that competed in triple-elimination brackets, with each match best-of-three. The top four teams from each group moved into the playoff bracket.

Group winners advanced straight into the playoff quarterfinals. Runners-up advanced to the Round of 12, third-place teams moved to the Round of 16 as high seeds and fourth-place teams started in the Round of 16 as low seeds.

The single-elimination playoff bracket features best-of-three matches until the best-of-five grand final Sunday.

The winner will receive $170,000 and will qualify for the first ESL Pro Tour Championship of 2025.

On Thursday, Eternal Fire opened with a 16-14 overtime victory on Anubis before Vitality tied the match with a 13-5 win on Nuke. The final map was Inferno, where the teams went back and forth over three overtimes before Eternal Fire scored the last two points for a 22-20 triumph.

The all-Turkish Eternal Fire roster leaned on two players: Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dortkardes, who posted 74 kills on a plus-16 kills-to-deaths differential, and Ozgur "woxic" Eker, who added 72 kills on a plus-16 K-D. Vitality fell despite 85 kills on a whopping plus-30 K-D from star Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut of France.

Meanwhile, MIBR took down M80 13-10 on Anubis and 13-8 on Ancient. Rafael "saffee" Costa paced the all-Brazilian MIBR side with 43 kills on a plus-24 differential. German Elias "s1n" Stein led M80 with 27 kills.

The quarterfinals conclude Friday with two matches:

--G2 Esports vs. Team Liquid

--Natus Vincere vs. Team Spirit

ESL Pro League Season 20 prize pool (money, BLAST Premier points):

1. $170,000, 2,400 points

2. $80,000, 1,800

3-4. $45,000, 300

5-8. $32,000, 175 -- Team Vitality, M80, two teams TBD

9-12. $23,500, no points -- The MongolZ, HEROIC, Complexity Gaming, Imperial Esports

13-16. $17,500, no points -- BIG, Virtus.pro, FaZe Clan, FURIA Esports

17-20. $12,000, no points -- Sangal Esports, 3DMAX, MOUZ, RED Canids

21-28. $7,000, no points -- Ninjas in Pyjamas, FlyQuest, 9z Team, Wildcard, Fnatic, Astralis, Team Falcons, ATOX Esports

29-32. $3,500, no points -- Lynn Vision Gaming, KOI, Rooster, ENCE

--Field Level Media