The start of the 2025 season was dominated by three teams — Tundra, Spirit, and Liquid. These teams won all four major tournaments of the year. Tundra had a particularly impressive start, taking the title twice and reaching the finals twice more. Will this powerful trio manage to continue their hegemony in the ESL One Raleigh 2025? In this article, 1xBet esports experts will reveal everything you need to know about the upcoming tournament.
ESL One Raleigh 2025 format and prize money
The last time the ESL One series of tournaments was held in the United States was in 2015 in New York City. ESL One Los Angeles 2020 was canceled due to a pandemic, and only now the series returns to North America. However, this time the organizers from ESL, with the support of official sponsor 1xBet, decided to hold the tournament not in a major metropolis, but in Raleigh — the capital of the North Carolina state.
The ESL One Raleigh 2025 tournament will be hosted at the Raleigh Convention Center from April 7 to 13, 2025, with only two stages — group stage and playoffs. The total prize pool for the tournament is $1,000,000, which will be distributed as follows:
- 1 place: $250,000 Player Prize + $40,000 Club Reward
- 2 place: $130,000 Player Prize + $35,000 Club Reward
- 3 place: $100,000 Player Prize + $27,500 Club Reward
- 4 place: $70,000 Player Prize + $22,500 Club Reward
- 5-6 places: $40,000 Player Prize + $20,000 Club Reward
- 7-8 places: $25,000 Player Prize + $17,500 Club Reward
- 9-10 places: $20,000 Player Prize + $15,000 Club Reward
- 11-12 places: $15,000 Player Prize + $10,000 Club Reward
In the tournament’s first stage, 12 teams will be divided into two groups, and each participant will play five matches consisting of two games. The top two teams from each group will advance to the upper bracket of the playoff, the 3rd and 4th place teams will move to the lower bracket of the playoffs, and the two worst teams will leave the tournament. The final matches will take place from April 10 to 13 under the double-elimination scheme, and in the grand finals, the teams will compete in the Bo5 format.
In addition to the prize money, the teams will receive 27,920 EPT Points, which will help them qualify for the Esports World Cup 2025 summer tournament, known for its massive prize pool. For example, last yearєs tournament featured a $5,000,000 prize pool in Dota 2 alone, with the winners of Gaimin Gladiators earning $1,500,000. By the way, the 1xBet Supernova tournament in the esports discipline Mobile Legends was held around the same period, and the team from the Philippines, Falcons AP.Bren, celebrated its victory.
ESL One Raleigh 2025 participants and favorites
Only four of the 12 entrants in the tournament received direct invites thanks to the EPT Leaderboard: PARIVISION, BetBoom, Falcons, and Liquid. The remaining eight spots went to the winners of the regional qualifiers:
- Western Europe: Tundra Esports and AVULUS
- Eastern Europe: Team Spirit
- MESWA: Nigma Galaxy
- China: Team Tidebound
- Southeast Asia: Talon Esports
- North America: Shopify Rebellion
- South America: HEROIC
During the qualifiers, some teams used the banned Smoke of Deceit bug, which allowed them to explore their opponents’ inventory by dragging and dropping Smoke of Deceit. Because of this, NAVI Junior was disqualified and gave its slot to the AVULUS team at the tournament. However, the Xtreme Gaming team, which won the Chinese qualifier, had another problem — it was unable to assemble a squad and gave its slot to Team Tidebound.
Three teams are the clear favorites in the tournament: Tundra, Spirit, and Liquid. The winner is highly expected to be one of them, although PARIVISION, BetBoom, and Falcons also have chances for victory.
1xBet clients from the Philippines are surely looking forward to the start of the ESL One Raleigh 2025 tournament, as Talon Esports and Shopify Rebellion teams feature four local esports players: Kuku, Natsumi, skem, and Yopaj. As a reminder, the international platform 1xBet is an official partner of ESL One Raleigh 2025 and other esports tournaments, including 1xBet Supernova.
