PG Nationals is the best Italian competition when it comes to professional League of Legends. If you haven’t heard of it, here are all the details for the start of the 2023 season.
Image Credits | PG Esports
PG Nationals – The Italian ERL
The PG Nationals is the first division of the Italian League of Legends league. Since its formation back in early 2018, PG Nationals has been part of the EU Masters circuit. Currently managed by the Italian esports organizers PG Esports, 2023 will be the sixth season of the Italian national league.
Tournament Format
Just like most leagues worldwide, PG Nationals is divided between Spring and Summer split. Since it’s treated as a non-accredited European Regional League, PG Nationals has a total of 8 participants that compete in a double round-robin with a best-of-one format. The top four teams will qualify for the spring playoffs in a knockout stage. the #1 and #2 seed will play against each other in the winners’ bracket in round one, while #3 and #4 will go through the losers’ bracket.
The top two teams will qualify for the European Masters Spring 2023: the champions will go straight to the main event, while the runner-ups will have to fight in the play-in stage. Nevertheless, it’s a great opportunity for both teams as they will be playing against top-tier teams coming from all the other ERLs like Vitality.Bee or Team BDS Academy.
PG Nationals – Participants
It was a rather eventful off-season for the Italian ERL. Following the end of the promotion tournament at the end of last year, 2nd division champions DSYRE (DSYR) were promoted to the main league for the 2023 season.
Aside from them, however, the Italian competition will welcome two new teams: Webidoo Gaming (WBD) and DREN Esports (DREN). WBD was the runner-up behind DSYR in the second Italian division and ended up acquiring the slot from Samsung Morning stars, one of the first teams to ever join the Italian competition.
DREN was also part of the second-division circuit in 2022 and was promoted after Atleta Esports told the organizers they would’ve been unable to compete in 2023. According to esportsmag, the main reason was related to a lack of sufficient financial funds to sustain the competition.
Therefore, the eight teams that will be participating in PG Nationals 2023 are:
aNc Outplayed
Axolotl
Cyberground Gaming
DREN Esports
DSYRE Esports
GGEsports
Macko Esports
Webidoo Gaming
The current champions are Macko Esports, the most successful team in the last two years. Ever since they entered the competition in 2021, Macko went on to win three out of the four splits, only losing to Atleta Esports in the finals of the 2022 Spring Split.
Where to watch PG Nationals
The Italian ERL will kick off its Spring Split on Jan. 26 and it will be broadcasted on PG Esports’ official Twitch channel. Official matches will be played every week on Thursday and Friday, until the end of the regular split on Mar. 10.
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