FACEIT Pro League admins have expelled 38 players from the League and are planning to kick about a hundred more. The CS.MONEY Blog is here to elaborate on what the FPL is all about, and why it’s so important for esports in general.
What happened?
FACEIT Pro League members experienced a spell of kicks, with a total of 38 players expelled as a result. And they aren’t no-names: the list includes, among others, two-time Major champion Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt, ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017 winner Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye, and DreamHack Open Sevilla 2019 champion Jakob “JUGi” Hansen.
This is pretty big! However, the development in question doesn’t mean the FPL is about to close. Rather, it means the opposite. According to the info provided by insider Alexey “OverDrive” Biryukov, the league’s managers intend to bring it to its roots: fewer matches but the participants are the elite of CS:GO.
In light of this, kicking Major champions doesn’t look like a crazy whim. Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt switched to a different discipline not too long ago, and Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye finished his career as a player. After these “purges,” the FACEIT Pro League is a little closer to being an elite club of the world’s best players.
Why do we need the FACEIT Pro League?
The FACEIT Pro League was founded back in 2015. Each month, a total of $20,000 is distributed among the top 15 competitors. To determine the best players, FPL uses an ELO system,. The more you play and win, the more points you get. If you make it into the top five — congratulations, your outstanding performance in CS:GO has just earned you over a thousand bucks.
However, the $4,500 awarded to the best player of the month is not the most valuable prize here. FACEIT Pro League is a point of entry into high-profile esports. You all know Robin “ropz” Kool, right? Taking his place in Mousesports, a world-class team, was a result of his outstanding performance in FPL.
Özgür “woxic” Eker and Issa “ISSAA” Murad found their fame in a similar way. Their accomplishments in the FPL resulted in joining HellRaisers, where they made it into the Major playoffs. We don’t know how many woxic stickers have been sold overall, but a gold sticker signed by the London Major participant costs a hundred bucks today.
Bottom line, the FPL is the origin of talented CS:GO players. Esports clubs get access to an ever-growing number of promising young players, and young players get a chance to join a premier squad. A win-win and, more importantly, effective process.
How do I get into the FPL?
Becoming an FPL member is a tough task. Be ready for a number of investments. First, you’ll have to invest a lot of time. You’ll need to play constantly and at a decent level, which is barely possible without practicing.
Second, reach the tenth level on the platform. Fortunately, progress is easy to track here. Unlike player queuing in CS:GO, FACEIT uses the ELO rating system, where you can always view your current rating and track all changes. The system is pretty straightforward. If you win, you acquire points; if you lose, you forfeit points.
To climb to the tenth level, you have to get 2,000 Elo points — which is difficult for two reasons. First, there are a lot of people chasing the precious tenth level, and the matches aren’t going to be easy. Second, player queuing will constantly toss in your “rating peers.” Therefore, you’ll have to face a stronger opponent in every next match.
The third step is investing money. At first, you can play for free, but after you’ve reached the tenth level, a subscription is in order. The fee isn’t that high, but it functions on a monthly basis.
Here’s a tip: play with friends. That will significantly improve your chances of gaining 2000 points and finally making it into the Premium Master League.
Yet making it into the PML is only the beginning. Now, you have to become 1 of the 100 best players in this league. This will grant you access to the FPL Challenger qualifier. At the qualifier, you’ll need to enter the top five — this will give you a spot in the FPL-C.
FPL Challenger & further on
Even reaching the FPL-C alone demonstrates how good your skills are. But not only that — from now on, you get a chance to make money off your play. Every month, the top five players in the FPL Challenger share a prize pool of $3,000. Not bad at all.
Afterwards, all that’s left is to make it into the FPL Challenger Top 100. Now, the final boss is available: qualifying for the FACEIT Pro League. The top two players of the qualifier advance to the Pro League and enter the FPL, where they get to compete with the top players.
And those aren’t just pretty words. This year alone, the monthly top players included Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy of NAVI, Tim “nawwk” Jonasson of Ninjas in Pyjamas, Helvijs “broky” Saukants of FaZe Clan, and David “frozen” Čerňanský of mouz. This is by no means an exhaustive list of active players on premier European teams.
Membership in the FACEIT Pro League greatly increases the chances of getting into a world-class team, but entering the league is a marathon task. You have to put in a lot of hard work. That’s playing for eight to ten, or even twelve, hours a day.
With a schedule like that, burnout is a rather common case. To ensure you don’t get bored from playing and the positive emotions stay, we recommend that you get a couple of amazing skins. A vibrant weapon finish or a pretty knife view animation will unfailingly distract you from losses and help keep a winner’s attitude in every match.
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