WePlay Academy League Season 5 Kicks Off On July 25

The fifth season of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament for academy teams is slated to kick off on Monday, July 25. It will once again feature some of the world’s top CS:GO academy squads, vying for the lion’s share of the $100,000 prize pool.

The Ukrainian CS:GO tournament organizer, WePlay, has officially unveiled the fifth season of its CS:GO academy league, WePlay Academy League Season 5. As revealed, the junior tournament will run between July 25 and August 14, filling in the void left by the summer tournament break.

The tournament will welcome 14 CS:GO Academy teams, including all of the squads who attended the fourth season of the event, who will compete to take home the $45,000 winner’s share. The fifth WePlay Academy League will also use the same format as the previous iterations.

The 14 teams will be divided into two double round-robin groups of seven. Each participating team will play each other in a series of best-of-one (BO1) formats, with the top team from each group receiving a ticket for the double-elimination playoffs.

The teams placed from second to fourth in their respective groups will advance into the Gauntlet Stage, where they’ll compete for the final invites to the playoffs. The full schedule of the event is as follows:

• Group Stage: July 25 – August 7 (possible tiebreakers on August 8)
• Gauntlet Stage: August 9-10
• Playoffs: August 12-14

Just like in Season 4, all stages, including the playoffs, will be held online. However, while the WePlay Academy League Season 5 will look similar to its previous iteration, it will welcome a new team in ENCE Academy, who will round up a list of 14 squads.

Attending WePlay Academy League Season 15 are YN.GamerPay, mouz NXT, BIG. OMEN Academy, Young Gods, FURIA Academy, Spirit Academy, Eternal Fire Academy, NAVI Junior, OG Academy, 00Prospects, Apeks Rebels, Astralis Talent, Fnatic Rising, ENCE Academy.

Esports betting sites have yet to release betting markets for the WePlay Academy League Season 5; however, it’s not difficult to spot which team is favored to come out on top. MOUZ NXT enter the WePlay Academy League S5 as the defending champions and the most successful team in history, having won all previous four iterations of the event.

MOUZ NXT won their first WePlay Academy League in August 2021 with 3-1 against Young Ninjas, added another in November with a 2-0 sweep of NaVi Junior, and claimed two more in 2022, with two 2-0 sweeps of BIG Academy in February and June.

Given their success in the tournaments, it’s reasonable to expect MOUZ NXT to contest their fifth title. However, there are a couple of strong contenders in the mix.

Most notably, BIG Academy, have proven to be a worthy opponent for the international lineup, claiming two runner-up finishes in Season 3 and 4. Even though MOUZ NXT bested them in both contests, BIG Academy have proven their worth this year and could be in the mix to challenge the defending champions.

Another team that could surprise is the newly-formed ENCE Academy. Fielding a promising Finnish roster of Paavo “podi” Heiskanen, Ville “myltsi” Vilkman, Henri “HENU” Ylilehto, Youssef “juissi” Adam, and Veeti “S1rva” Sirva, ENCE’s academy squad possess enough talent to make a deep run.

The team has no official matches on its record but consists of players with previous experience competing in B-Tier events with the likes of local teams in SJ, ENTERPRISE, NYYRIKKI Esports. Whether ENCE Academy will live up to the expectations is anyone’s guess, but we can be certain that WePlay Academy Season 5 will be another exciting event with close games and memorable highlights.