ESL changes Pro Tour system and introduces tournament calendar for 2022

ESL has announced the rebranding of some of its tournaments and unveiled the ESL Pro Tour calendar for 2022. The press release is published on the company’s official website.

Starting next year, each Pro Tour tournament will be held under the ESL brand: DreamHack Open was renamed to ESL Challenger, and ESEA Premier to ESL Challenger League. The winners of these events will take part in EPL Conference, which will be a qualifier for ESL Pro League.

In 2022, ESL is intended to organize seven championships in the LAN format: two events of the Masters series (IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne) and five of the Championship series (IEM US, IEM China, ESL Pro League S15, ESL Pro League S16). The possibility of holding the major in cooperation with Valve, which was originally supposed to take place in 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, is also under consideration.

ESL noted that in addition to the most significant tournaments, it will also host less prestigious events of the ESL Challenger series offline. They will be organized in the USA, Spain, Australia and the Netherlands.

At the same time, DreamHack Masters was excluded from the ESL Pro Tour system. Another change concerns IEM Winter, which this year will take place in Europe, and not in Asia, as originally planned.

Masters and Championship series tournament calendar:

  • IEM Fall – September 29-October 10
  • EPL S15 Conference – November 23-28
  • IEM Winter – December 2-12
  • IEM Katowice – February 16-27
  • ESL Pro League Season 15 – March 9-April 10
  • IEM US – May 31-June 5
  • EPL S16 Conference – June 14-19
  • IEM Cologne – July 5-17
  • ESL Pro League Season 16 – August 31-October 2
  • EPL S17 Conference – November 22-27
  • IEM China – December 6-11
  • IEM Katowice – February 2023

Challenger series tournament calendar for 2022:

  • ESL National Championships – January-May
  • ESL Challenger #48 – February 11-13
  • ESL Challenger League S40 – January 18-April 3
  • ESL Challenger League S41 – April 26-June 26
  • ESL Challenger #49 – July 1-3
  • ESL National Championships – August-October
  • ESL Challenger League S42 – August 16-October 23
  • ESL Challenger #50 – September 2-4
  • ESL Challenger #51 – October 14-16
  • ESL Challenger League S43 – October 25-December 18

Origin: pro.eslgaming.com