MOUZ, Liquid reach ESL Pro League Season 19 playoffs

MOUZ and Team Liquid booked their spots in the ESL Pro League Season 19 playoffs with Group C upper-bracket wins on Wednesday in Saint Julian's, Malta.

MOUZ swept GamerLegion 2-0 before Liquid trounced Monte 2-0. The two victors will square off on Saturday to determine their playoff seeding.

Sweden's Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin registered 41 kills and a plus-19 kill-death differential as MOUZ beat Gamer Legion 13-1 on Nuke and 16-12 on Mirage. Poland's Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski notched 27 kills for GamerLegion.

Liquid opened with a 22-19, triple-overtime win on Ancient, then closed out Monte with a 13-11 decision on Mirage. Canadian Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken recorded 49 kills and a plus-4 K-D differential for Liquid. Ukraine's Volodymyr "Woro2k" Veletniuk logged 55 kills and a plus-14 K-D differential for Monte.

The $750,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with 32 teams broken up into four groups of eight. Group-stage winners advance to the quarterfinals; runners-up advance to the Round of 12 as the high seeds; third-place teams advance to the Round of 16 as the high seeds; and fourth-place teams advance to the Round of 16 as the low seeds.

The group stage is triple-elimination with upper, middle and lower brackets. All matches are best-of-three until the grand final, which is best-of-five.

The tournament runs through May 12. The winner earns $170,000 and qualifies for the IEM Cologne 2024 event.

The Group C mid-bracket opened play on Wednesday, with ENCE downing Bad News Kangaroos 2-1 and FORZE Esports dumping FURIA Esports 2-0.

ENCE sandwiched a 13-7 win on Vertigo and a 13-0 rout on Anubis around a 13-9 defeat on Nuke. Poland's Krzysztof "Goofy" Gorski posted 49 kills and a plus-17 K-D differential for ENCE. Jared "hazr" O'Bree had 42 kills to lead the Kangaroos' all-Australian squad.

FORZE handled FURIA 13-7 on Nuke, 13-0 on Overpass thanks in part to 33 kills and a plus-14 K-D differential from Belarus' Andrey "tN1R" Tatarinovich. Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato topped FURIA's all-Brazilian team with 25 kills.

The Group D upper-bracket quarterfinals also concluded on Wednesday, with BIG sweeping BOSS 2-0 and Natus Vincere downing FlyQuest 2-0.

BIG prevailed 16-13 on Ancient, 13-10 on Vertigo as Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz led the all-German roster with 47 kills and a plus-11 K-D differential. The United States' Matthew "Cryptic" Whitmore countered with 51 kills and a plus-15 K-D differential for BOSS.

Natus Vincere rolled 13-5 on Ancient, 13-6 on Mirage, with Ukraine's Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy producing 38 kills and a plus-20 K-D differential. Joshua "INS" Potter had 28 kills for the all-Australian FlyQuest team.

The Thursday schedule:

--Group D upper-bracket semifinal: Complexity Gaming vs. HEROIC

--Group D upper-bracket semifinal: BIG vs. Natus Vincere

--Group C mid-bracket quarterfinal: Monte vs. ENCE

--Group C mid-bracket quarterfinal: GamerLegion vs. FORZE Esports

--Group D mid-bracket first round: Pera Esports vs. Ninja in Pyjamas

--Group D mid-bracket first round: BOSS vs. FlyQuest

ESL Pro League Season 19 prize pool

1. $170,000, 2,000 BLAST Premier points -- TBD

2. $80,000, 1,400 points -- TBD

3-4. $45,000, 750 points -- TBD

5-8. $32,000, 275 points -- TBD

9-12. $23,500 -- TBD

13-16. $17,500 -- TBD

17-20. $12,000 -- SAW, M80, two teams TBD

21-28. $7,000 -- Fnatic, Eternal Fire, Team Falcons, TYLOO, four teams TBD

29-32. $3,500 -- Imperial Esports, Sharks Esports, two teams TBD

--Field Level Media