ESEA updates qualification system for ESL Pro League for CS2

Qualification system for ESL Challenger League and ESL Pro League has been adjusted in accordance with the rules for holding tournaments from Valve. Before, the developers allowed the organizers to keep the previous competition format for two seasons as an exception. Now the path from ESEA Advanced to the ESL Challenger League is replaced by two Elite tournaments per season.

Elite events will become qualifiers for ESL Challenger League and will take place twice a season in Europe and North America. They will kick off with open qualifiers, where squads are seeded based on their performance in the ESEA league. Then the top 16 rosters will advance to the group stage, while the two strongest will secure a slot in ESL Challenger League. Elite tournaments will affect the VRS rating.

ESEA Advanced will remain an unranked tournament, since teams in it automatically move from the previous season and secure slots based on their results in lower divisions. As compensation, the winner of each ESEA Advanced season will receive a spot at DreamHack Knockout, a BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) LAN competition that will award tickets to the ESL Pro League.

Thus, this change implies that ESL Challenger League (ECL) is no longer linked to the traditional ESEA league system (Open, Entry, Intermediate, Main, Advanced). ECL will remain a ranked event that provides direct berths in ESL Pro League, while the league system will remain unranked, with Advanced winners competing for a ticket to the ESL Pro League LAN qualifier.

Origin: x.com