ESL and DreamHack to launch CS:GO circuit in 2020 with over $5 million in prize pool

3-9-2019 16:00

ESL and DreamHack announced on Tuesday the ESL Pro Tour, a global CS:GO circuit to launch in 2020 with over $5 million in aggregate prize pool.

The ESL Pro Tour will combine over 20 ESL and DreamHack tournaments into "one narrative that builds towards two grand championships each year". With this new system, ESL and DreamHack aim to "create a more complete path from zero to hero for aspiring players, a more compelling story to follow for existing CS:GO fans, and a more transparent structure for new esports fans."

The ESL Pro Tour competitions will be split into two levels: Challenger and Masters. The first includes the DreamHack Open stops, ESEA MDL and the ESL National Championships, and will serve as a platform for teams to reach the Masters-level arena tournaments with $250,000 or more in prize money. These include the ESL One, IEM and DreamHack Masters events, and the ESL Pro League itself.

The ESL Pro Tour will culminate with two Masters Championships, one of which in Cologne

By competing in the ESL Pro Tour competitions, teams will win points towards a circuit ranking, with the best sides earning spots at the two Masters Championship finals, which will be held at IEM Katowice and ESL One Cologne.

“ESL’s growth in recent years has led us to rethink what we are doing," ESL CEO Ralf Reichert said in a statement. "We have built some of the world’s most impressive esports tournaments, and it was the time to connect the dots where the outcome is a bigger picture that fits better with our vision for esports.

"This partnership between ESL and DreamHack will give youths a clearer and more complete path to becoming somebody, and a structure that is more welcoming and digestible for new esports fans."

According to a press release, the ESL Pro Tour "will feature an aggregate prize pool of more than $5 million (USD)", with more details to be announced on September 28 during a media briefing at ESL One New York.

It is currently unclear whether this initiative will mean that more prize money will be injected into the tournament landscape. Just by combining the prize pool from all IEM, ESL One, DreamHack Open, DreamHack Masters and ESL Pro League events that have already been held in 2019 or are confirmed for the final months of the year, we get $4.950 million - a figure that obviously includes the $1 million from the Major that ESL held in Katowice, which had an extra $500,000 when compared to the IEM event that the Polish city hosted the year before.

cr4zy man

2019-09-03 16:01

12 replies

POG CHAMP EDIT: HI MOM

2019-09-03 16:04

10 replies

HILY FUCK

2019-09-03 16:03

8 replies

INSANE

6 replies

So much ez money for mibr with KNG 😎💪

2019-09-03 16:05

5 replies

cool

2019-09-03 16:09

4 replies

this is gonna fuck the scene up

2019-09-03 16:20

2 replies

No? This is gonna be great. I wish they would cut ProLeague for it though.

2019-09-03 16:36

1 reply

yea its already looking like it will be hilarious hltv.org/events/4093/dreamhack-open-rott..

2019-09-03 17:35

I'm part of history

2019-09-03 18:36

MAJOR WHO ???

Hi Son

2019-09-03 16:46

ResidentSleeper

Gfg

Geeks for Geeks!!! Cool choice men)))

2019-09-03 17:14

interesting

2019-09-03 16:02

pffft LOOTbet still bigger

2019-09-03 16:51

Nice. Let’s go liquid

4 MAJORS A YEAR OH BOY

ez many for Astralis

blyat

Wow

lol this is now more important than the major

It isnt It is important as major It looks like 1.6 majors i guess

11 replies

yea it is more important before that, everyone viewed cologne as something like a major but with lower prize pool and now it has big prize pool and is basically a major, but better

2019-09-03 16:10

Swiss stages killing cs go Bcs too long No rival matches where you go toe-to-toe No crowd Thats why cologne or iem seems better than majors

2019-09-03 16:11

Swiss was fine until people started to cry about seeding and wanted BO3 for everything, BO1 group stage should be enough and maybe only BO3 for the 2-2 matches.

2019-09-03 16:33

No man It should 1 week double elimination playoff games on scene like in dota Why we should play group stage with 16 teams Which goes 5 days to make 8 of 16? We can play Swiss to determine new challengers, its ok. But why they kill cs go with 2nd swiss stage

2019-09-03 16:39

5 millions overall Basically they will have 20 events with this prizepool, no? Which means that they will have maximum 1 million per 1 of 2 biggest events?

2019-09-03 16:13

yea but 1 million for cologne would still make it really good also, there will be tournaments without any prize pool now which qualifies for the masters tournaments so it probably won't be 20 events, more like 10

There are 15, I think.

2019-09-03 16:29

it's not majors have stickers and legend status

who cares about stickers tho I had much more fun watching Cologne than the major

2019-09-03 16:40

there are plenty of events that were better than majors i thought we were talking about prestige and value in it for players/org

2019-09-03 17:07

major = stickers money + prize pool this is a major tournament but not A major :D it's a difference:D

2019-09-03 23:29

epic

ez for fer and co.

3 replies

Dude, why are Brazilian fans such delusional apes?

bit.ly/2jXvnzg

2019-09-03 16:18

thesun.co.uk/news/5566217/brazilians-are.. wtf mens)))

2019-09-03 18:01

Wowww

nice

OMG

overwatch league Global offensive wait

ok now that is low key epic

Same shit different names

Cool

they are franchising fuck

No they're not lmao

2019-09-03 16:07

2 iq

America brain

Where is BLAST?

dead in 2020

2019-09-03 16:06

Holy shit

HOLY SHIT

FINALLY

EZ G2

Yeah boiii

2019-09-03 16:54

Damn bro, Astralis going to take the win home, ngl its either them or Nabi or Cr4zy

Awesome! Hopefully this means BLAST tournaments will disappear.

Cogchamp

wut

Very cool. Let's make cs great again.

2019-09-03 16:08

cool.

This is exactly what Valve should have come up with...

if anyone is able to explain me the revolutionairy change to the system now, im listening. its basically the same shit to be honest xD ... just called ''pro tour'' the open tournaments like dreamhack are still tier 3 events, chicago, newyork and those tournaments are still big events and katowice and cologne are still the big dogs with huge prestige.... nothing really changed to be honest xD

2019-09-03 17:44

Not really. As I understand it, there will be a circuit divided in three categories of event : - DH Open / MDL / ESL National Chp (lower) - DH Masters / ESL One / IEM / Pro League (medium) - Master Championship (high) Each lower and medium tournaments will give points depending on your placings. This is great for lower tier teams because at the moment for example the ESL National champ. doesn't land anything than prizemoney. The winner of DH Opens did not automaticly land a spot for DH Masters (they changed that recently which is cool) and if you fail in the MDL finals you would not get the chance to play against the top until the next MDL finals (and try to qualify for EPL). Now this will give you points on a ranking and depending on your ranking you will get invited to Masters, ESL One, IEM... And these events will also give points. And then the teams at the top of the ranking at the end of the season will battle in a new tournament to decide a winner. This is cool and this has been what ESWC/Cyberleague was doing early in 1.6. It gives more exposure and more chances to every teams trying to reach the top. This will increase the competitiveness of the game for sure. I'm really excited about that.

2019-09-03 20:30

Cool So it's like the dota pro circuit right ?

It does sound the same indeed. I'm just sad that it was not made by Valve.

2019-09-03 20:32

ESL Istanbul 2020 please

Liquid and Trump in 2020. What a amazing year it will be.

7 replies

an* fakeflagger

? Huh ?

What AN amazing year it will be.

2019-09-03 16:21

Holy shit. WOW dude. Thanks man. I said and instead of an. Holy fuck good catch good correction. Holy shit. AMAZING

2019-09-03 16:24

fkin fakeflagger

2019-09-03 16:27

2019-09-03 19:48

2019-09-03 18:43

Actually sick

2019-09-03 16:12

banger

Pog

2019-09-03 16:14

Pog but why isnt valve doing this?

2019-09-03 16:15

Ez for God olof

2019-09-03 16:16

Just like DPC in Dota 2 and hopefully to a TI- like tourney in a year, but this isn't valve sponsored so... okay. This is still a forward step, yey!

CSGO Ti plz

2019-09-03 16:19

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice Edit: this actually doesn't change anything and is just an attempt by esl and dh to monopolize the circuit

If they don't do it someone will. I'd rather it be the staples of the CS scene doing it than Blast or Turner.

2019-09-16 20:20

pog

2019-09-03 16:22

Dreamhack Major please

very very nice

Wtf

2019-09-03 16:23

What did they even change other than just grouping it togther and giving it a name lol and somw points system

2019-09-03 16:25

still not much moneyrino

2019-09-03 16:26

Valve major prize increase????

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

2019-09-03 16:34

majors need increased prize pool now

Not untill the game is dead.

2019-09-03 16:44

They better host a tournament in Michigan

2019-09-03 16:38

It's not even an increase on the money they're giving right now, it just adds another fucked up system that we will need to follow to keep up to date. No thanks.

oh for fucks sake

2019-09-03 16:43

over 1,5 mil in prize money REAL SHIT

Fuck.. this means the game is dying. at least my opinion.

uhhhhhhhh wat

2019-09-03 16:47

Cant see anything possitive with this. All i think about is price pool ads for games like, Fortnite LoL Whatever that dead after one week game blizzard made, it was a fps If you need more then 3-5k$ salary and more then 100-1000k$ price pools... Its just not fun Edit my bad.... I need to learn to read before i comment

2019-09-03 16:59

Not really, but in a few years esl will take control over the whole cs go scene which is not necessarily a bad thing but could be.

2019-09-03 18:38

Alright

booom baby csgo back in the top again !!

2019-09-03 16:50

Good idea actually

2019-09-03 16:56

Lol

finally!!!!

2019-09-03 16:58

Nice, german dominance will be expanded even further

MTG (a swedish company) owns 82 percent of ESL and 100 percent of Dreamhack lol

POGGERS!!!

who cars

2019-09-03 17:01

MAJOR WHEN?

2019-09-03 17:11

20 million prizepool on major incoming!!!

imagine speding 20M on csgo lmao.

2019-09-03 17:27

Valve gets 414M on csgo in 2018 lol

2019-09-04 03:28

i have negative IQ please someone tell me if thats good or not

2019-09-03 17:13

youtube.com/watch?v=QJHUbtR0yI8

2019-09-03 17:37

RIP cs go

2019-09-03 17:16

Actually not a bad thing to start doing.

2019-09-03 17:18

see? this is how you do a circuit, learn how to do it properly, BLAST

2019-09-03 17:20

woooow 5000000$ nice)

2019-09-03 17:22

How does this make it easier for new viewers to understand what’s happening in the scene, it’ll make it harder for all of us to understand how invites to other events work

2019-09-03 17:25

tldr: group all the esl and dh events together, it's a "circuit" now, they can say that they're hosting an event with 5 mil in prizes even tho those events' prize pools were already almost that much

2019-09-03 17:30

oo-ee

Nice

Can ESL please franchise CS:GO? Tired of worthless circuits, this is way more fun

loooooooool

2019-09-03 17:54

wow :D

2019-09-03 18:02

Expected

2019-09-03 18:10

Now this is some big time stuff, nice way to prompt teams to be more competitive

2019-09-03 18:11

So, what changes really? 20 tournaments, 5M prize pool.. which gives 250k tournaments, as it is already.. they just named it a "tour". Am i looking at this wrong?

2019-09-03 18:23

2 tournaments with 5m pool each one

2019-09-03 18:24

Totally not. The total amount of prize money for 2020 will be 5M+ Thats the same money like this year.

2019-09-03 18:39

Its more organized. There is a qualification path from small tour events (like the 8 team dreamhacks) to master events (250k 16 team events) Branding Nothing else. For the big teams, almost nothing changes, other then some online qualifiers will lose slots for master level events (250k, 16 teams) and smaller events get the qualification slots.

2019-09-03 18:26

Also way more prioritization on top tier events and therefore no excuses. If you need the points you better prep well.

2019-09-16 20:19

finally

20 tourney 5 million OMEGALUL nt ESL

2019-09-03 18:30

DREAM HACK RIO, ESL OPEN BELO HORIZONTE, ESL OPEN SAO PAULO,ESL OPEN PORTUGAL, PLEASE !!

RIP BLAST finally

2019-09-03 19:11

This might mean that cologne or katowice will be less stacked

2019-09-03 19:18

xdd

2019-09-03 19:39

I dont think i understand, will some1 try to explain it to me? This means 4 majors? I mean 2 majors and these 2 bigbig tournaments? And is i just like the major systems, with a lot of qualifiers to get a spot?

2019-09-03 20:01

2019-09-03 20:40

ok good

2019-09-03 21:21

The important think to mention is that cs has way too many tournaments happening and it is correct step to make tier1 and tier2 tournaments (where best teams wont be invited as it pretty much spoils competition). The thing about two big tournaments is super wierd because it can very well happen that well end up with prerty much 4 majors per year wich (i imagine) is NOT what valve and even me as viewer want. Whos got time for that? 2 majors already are too much to be honest, especially 3 weeks long with half of the games in bo1 shitty fluke-happy swiss system (but thats another topic i guess). So as i like the merge i am afraid a lot that it will actually hurt cs, depends how they set all variables. Edit: with this kind of evolution it would make sense for valve to finally announce csgo TI and dump second major, which they already announced they wont do in 2020 (again two dates estimated for two majors). So where is the hype? *facepalm*

2019-09-03 21:27