Cover Image Courtesy: CSGOLK
Sri Lankan esports has just received a welcome piece of news with the announcement of the Sri Lankan Pro League - a project initiated by CS:GO Sri Lanka.
The league is being hosted on FACEIT and will undergo a trial phase through November and December.
The first season of the league is set to commence on 1st January 2019 with 4 seasons taking place every 3 months through the year.
Players will receive cash prizes and other gifts depending upon their position in the seasonal leaderboards. The seasonal prize pool is still undisclosed at the moment and is due to be made public prior to the official launch of the league.
The top 3 players on the seasonal leaderboard are the ones that are most likely to receive these prizes but this might change as the league grows, with the number of players receiving prizes likely to increase with the addition of sponsors.
The trial phase of the league is free to join but is operating on an invite-only basis. Interested participants can apply for a slot here.
Post verification of the applications by the CS:GO Sri Lanka staff, a manual invitation will be sent to selected players.
League Operations
For now, the league is only offering a Solo-Queue option where players can engage in a 5v5 competitive play. To balance out both the teams, players will be assigned on the basis of their Elo Ratings.
Each time a player wins they will receive +7 points and if they lose, 5 points will be deducted. In addition to this, a win streak of 5 matches will give the player +15 points as a bonus.
This is what Vibuda ‘ChromnZ’ Dezoysa, Managing Director of CS:GO Sri Lanka, had to say about the Pro League,
The main objective of the project is to give exposure to every single player in the country and bring out the hidden talents of the players, hopefully creating more openings for them in the competitive scene. The esports scene in Sri Lanka was also built upon the game 'Counter-Strike 1.6' and SLPL brings back those nostalgic 'pugs' we used to have way back in the CS1.6 days.