ESL SEE with offline finals and $2,200

ESL have announced a first official season for the ESL South East Europe Championship with €2,000 (~$2,200) up for grabs. The season will feature numerous teams from South Eastern Europe competing for passage to the offline finals at the East European Comic Con in Bucharest on May 9-10.

It was only in December that the Bulgarians of GPlay won ESL's first SEE Championship and €650 (~$700) to boot, however this upcoming season will officially be called the "first" due to the offline finals involved; the previous season can be seen as more of a test season as such.

GPlay won the "test season" of the ESL SEE Championship

The ESL SEE season itself will be organised around two qualifiers for six separate regions. Both single country and multi-country regions comprise the total six:

- Hungary
- Bulgaria
- Turkey
- Greece and Cyprus
- Romania and Moldova
- Adriatic (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Malta, Albania)

The dates for each of the two qualifiers are as follows:

28/03	Turkey Qualifier #1
28/03	Romania Qualifier #1
28/03	Greece Qualifier #1
28/03	Bulgaria Qualifier #1
29/03	Adriatic Qualifier #1
30/03	Hungary Qualifier #1
04/04	Turkey Qualifier #2
04/04	Romania Qualifier #2
04/04	Greece Qualifier #2
04/04	Bulgaria Qualifier #2
04/04	Adriatic Qualifier #2
06/04	Hungary Qualifier #2

The top four teams from each of the two qualifiers will then advance to a final national qualifier (for a total of eight teams per region). From there, a certain number of the top participants from each region will qualify for the main round, which will feature a total of 16 teams.

The breakdown of advancing teams per region from the national qualifier to the main round is:

Turkey	Greece & Cyprus	Bulgaria	Romania & Moldova	Adriatic	Hungary
2	2	2	2	3	4

Additionally, the final team to the main round will come through a last chance qualifier.

The main round will be quartered into four groups with four teams each; from each group the top two teams will advance to the online playoffs; out of these final eight, four teams (the 3 top participants & a wildcard team from the hosting country, hence Romania) will make it to the offline playoffs in Bucharest.

The final prize breakdown for the ESL SEE first season will be:

1. - €1,000 (~$1,100)
2. - €500 (~$550)
3. - €300 (~$330)
4. - €200 (~$220) 

For a CS:GO team to participate in the ESL SEE, at least three out of the five players in its lineup must hail from the South Eastern European region. Specific links for the national qualifiers and more information can be found on ESL's CS:GO portal page.