ESL revamps Challenger League format for Season 50

ESL has announced a new format for the Challenger League this Friday, May 30. The tournament organizer had to revamp the structure of the league to "better align" with the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), and did so after consulting the participants.

ECL's new format

Starting with Season 50 in August, ECL will require "less commitment from teams" to allow them to compete in other tournaments and try to win more VRS points. The league will be more compact, so there will be fewer matches required to qualify for the ESL Pro League.

Another important change is that ESL has extinguished the best-of-ones and switched to best-of-threes across all regions. ECL will also stop being a proper league as ESL decided to adopt a cup-based structure as you can see below:

Each region will host 4 cups per season, with each cup having two weeks of playdays. This way, ESL Challenger League is a short-term commitment, and more streamlined for teams. The upcoming season will continue to feature a total of $290,000 in prize money and provide 5 slots to ESL Pro League Season 23 in 2026.

At the end of each season (after Cup #4 finishes) each region will feature Regional Finals. As all individual regional cups are a Tier 2 event, Regional Finals are considered a Tier 2 Wildcard event.

Based on the Wildcard Invite mechanism, where: “A team has placed first or second place in any Tournament, of equal or lesser tier than the one issuing the invite, during the preceding 6 months.”, any team advancing to the Regional Finals, must have won one of the individual cups, to be eligible for the invite.

With that mechanism, we’re also inviting the winner of each Regional Finals to the next season of ESL Pro League.

ESL has already planned for multiple scenarios, too.

• If a team win two cups they'll advance directly to the grand final of the Regional Finals

• If a team win three cups, the semifinals will be canceled, and the team will be granted a 1-map advantage in the grand final

• Finally, if a team win all four cups, ESL will cancel the Reginal Finals, and that team qualify directly to EPL

ECL's slot distribution

The slots for each cup woill be allocated through a combination of ESEA league placements and VRS invitations as ESL wants ECL to continue to serve as "an important, open pathway" for amateur teams starting in ESEA League, to climb all the way to EPL.

We will be adding a structured progression for teams and rewarding higher placements with more opportunities. Based on the team’s final placement in the region’s highest ESEA League division.

This is how it's going to work in NA:

• 1st place: Invitation to all four cups

• 2nd place: Invitation to the first three cups

• 3rd place: Invitation to the first two cups

• 4th place: Invitation to the first cup

Valve has specifically allowed ESL to invite the top four teams from ESEA Advanced Season 52 and 53 to ECL Season 50 as you can see in the Tournament Exceptions part of the Counter-Strike rulebook.

Additional info about the cups in NA

Format of the cups:

• Ranked Tier 2 regional event

• Prize money: $17,500

• Participants: 24 teams

• Format: Double elimination, all matches best-of-three

• Location: Online (US servers)

• Winner advances to the Regional Finals

Slot distribution:

For Cup 1 and 2, the first 16 slots will be invites based on the NA VRS, and the final eight slots will go to the top four teams in ESEA Advanced Season 52 and 53.

As for Cup 3, 20 teams will be invited based on the NA VRS, and the final four slots will go to the top two teams in ESEA Advanced Season 52 and 53.

Cup 4, on the other hand, will feature 22 teams based on the NA VRS, and the final two slots will go to the winners of ESEA Advanced Season 52 and 53.

Here is when all cups start and end:

• Cup 1: Monday, August 11th - Friday, August 15th & Tuesday, August 26th - Sunday August 31st

• Cup 2: Monday, September 8th - Friday, September 12th & Wednesday, September 17th - Monday, September 22nd

• Cup 3: Sunday, October 5th - Thursday, October 9th & Tuesday, October 14th - Sunday, October 19th

• Cup 4: Saturday, October 25th - Wednesday, October 29th & Monday, November 10th - Saturday, November 15th

NA Regional Finals format

• Ranked Tier 2 Wildcard event

• Participants: 4 teams

• Format: Single elimination, semifinal matches best-of-three, grand final match best-of-five

• Dates: Thursday, November 20th - Saturday, November 22nd

• Winner qualifies to ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 1

If you have any doubts, you can read ESL's blog post here.