ESL change qualification system for Katowice and Cologne

28-4-2022 16:57

From 2023 on, the tournament organizer will move away from the existing ESL Pro Tour ranking for their two flagship events.

ESL has announced changes to the way teams are invited to participate in its two Championship-level events, IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne, which will come into effect from 2023.

Previously, the ESL Pro Tour ranking, which took into account results from other ESL-run competitions, determined 16 of the 24 teams who qualified for the Play-in and main stages of the two flagship events, with the rest coming through the ESL World Ranking and the ESL National Championship of the country the event was held in (Poland or Germany).

The qualification system for ESL's flagship events has been simplified

Moving forward from IEM Katowice 2023 and on, the tournament organizer will scrap the EPT ranking and hand invites to the best teams according to the ESL World Ranking and to teams who won other key ESL events such as the previous Championship event and Pro League season, a Major, and up to three 'affiliate' tournaments ran by other organizers.

According to ESL, these changes were made in order to further simplify the ESL Pro Tour circuit, due to the belief that the existing system involving two separate rankings led to confusion.

Here's an example of what the distribution will look like from 2023:

Play-in teams

ESL Ranking

ESL Ranking EU

ESL Ranking NA

ESL Ranking SA

ESL Ranking Asia

ESL Ranking Oceania

ESL National

Affiliate event winner

Group stage teams

EPT Championship winner

EPT Masters winner

Major winner

ESL Ranking

ESL has stated that in case a team wins multiple qualifying events, the remaining slots will also be decided by the ESL World Ranking and not go to the runners-up of those events. The organizers also shared that while they plan on collaborating with other TOs, affiliate slots might not be activated, in which case the ESL World Ranking will determine those slots as well.

nice

2022-04-28 16:57

2 replies

much better structure

2022-04-29 01:36

1 reply

Invites instead of invites from 'affiliate' tournaments. MUCH BETTER

2022-04-29 09:36

just say you want to franchise these events edit: "invites to the best teams according to the ESL World Ranking and to teams who won ... a Major, and up to three 'affiliate' tournaments ran by other organizers." Imagine being told by a monopoly if your organized tournament matters to them or not

2022-04-28 17:05

3 replies

All tournaments count for the ESL ranking

2022-04-28 17:06

As far as I remember, ESL tournaments have a bigger weight than others tho

2022-04-28 17:28

Of course they do, though ESL does not want to admit that. Anyone with any brain can calculate the difference between hltv ranking and esl ranking and see clear correlation between the difference in the rankings and placings in esl events. Also, if they wouldn't want to put more weight to their own tournaments, they could easily just use hltv ranking. This said, they have all the right to do this, I don't blame them for anything other than maybe not admitting the thing.

2022-04-28 17:37

lol

2022-04-28 16:58

Ah yes rely on the trusty ESL Ranking. I bet even EG is gonna get an invite.

Nice

cool

2022-04-28 16:59

ESL Ranking is dumb they need to use HLTV ranking smh

2022-04-28 17:00

Impressive 🤔

2022-04-28 17:01

What does this mean?

4 replies

e$l will stop using the shitty epl rankings and instead they will use the shitty esl world rankings

2022-04-28 17:19

what's the difference between epl rankings and esl world rankings

Technically, a team could do badly in ESL events/not qualify for them and then do well in the major or in BLAST. Thus, that team wouldn't have enough points to qualify through the EPT ranking but might snatch a spot according to the ESL rankings.

2022-04-28 17:47

thanks, very well explained my greek friend

2022-04-28 18:13

now fix ESL ranking and it is all good

How?

2022-04-28 20:11

lol Renegades will have 100% invites

2022-04-28 17:02

5 replies

wouldn't be so sure about that considering Renegades haven't even been ranked on the ESL ranking for a while now.

2022-04-28 19:02

> ESL Ranking Oceania basically it means only The Boys

2022-04-28 19:06

They weren't even invited for IEM Dallas qual and had to play open qual.

2022-04-28 19:50

Which they lost in, so 0 points from that too.

2022-04-29 03:25

yep yep

2022-04-29 10:36

Good

2022-04-28 17:03

shit change

Good they got rid of EPT ranking, bad they still opt to use ESL Ranking. It's awful, makes no sense, if a former player from top 5 teams joins a noname team they instantly skyrocket to top 20. Why even use it? HLTVs one isn't perfect either of course, but it's still the best we got. Rhetorical question of course, ESL want >their< event to be decided by >their< ranking, even if it's flawed.

2022-04-28 17:09

8 replies

"It's awful, makes no sense, if a former player from top 5 teams joins a noname team they instantly skyrocket to top 20." it's make sense, bc players is the main focus, not the org the players is the one fight for the place, not the org the org just support those players to grab that place "Why even use it? HLTVs one isn't perfect either of course, but it's still the best we got." if there are two bad system, which one you will use? your own system which you can change depend on the best solution you find in future, or other system which you must use even if you think there are solution for that weakness

2022-04-28 17:39

7 replies

The issue is players move with entirety of their points, and distribution is completely unbalanced. Getting one "tier one" player makes u as much as placing high in a few different events. For a ranking that's mostly used to decide invites for events (top 15 teams) and qualifiers (top 30 teams). Eternal Fire got a bunch of invites when they were still godawful (they're a lot better now) because they had Woxic. OG instantly got into top 20 once they came into CS after they signed what was pretty much rejects from other teams, instantly getting invites despite achieving nothing, while teams that grind their asses of are ignored. The other issue is you mentioned fixing - I don't recall ESL making any changes to their rankings whatsoever, they pretend there's nothing wrong with it.

2022-04-28 17:53

6 replies

i think "player own the point" is fair system it's still fair system bc the player of EF/OG was the one grinding from the bottom too. it's just happen long before 'newer' player grind we have different view about "what is fair system" but if you mean, richer org can just bought a lineup like C9 did to compete in high-prize ESL Tournament, and that is take opportunity from poorer org, then i agree to your argument but still, to take what players deserve just bc a rich org purchase the players is an unfair thing imo ESL need to prevent rich org to bypass poor org without do unfairness to the players that involved maybe 25% of point is own by org and 75% is own by the 5 players (15% each) is fair to prevent rich org take poor org opportunity, idk in the past, yes, but for future potential, using your own ranking is much much better than using others

2022-04-28 18:09

It shouldn't be about org or about one players, it should be about team. Ofc if whole team or atleast 3/5 of them change org the points should stay. But it doesn't make any sense that one player leave the team and still have 1/5 points of the team. Ofc they should have some own points, but this is too much. Imagine that ropz would now leave FaZe and join let's say Apeks. Apeks would be instantly TOP10 (or even better) in ESL Ranking without achieving anything.

2022-04-28 19:56

If Rain was kicked from Faze he could join any team and that team would become at least top 15 in rankings and be instantly invited to ESL events And then there is EG who if not for being a partner with Blast and ESL they wouldn't play a single tier 1 event

2022-04-30 15:58

jump to completely different topic about partner team, but thanks for your opinion

2022-04-30 16:45

Nice you ignore my first point. How is it not relevant? By getting automatically invited they bypass the grind required to qualify for the events, especially Blast ones. If they don't bomb out last place at every (like EG), they will get guaranteed points which will increase their points. World ranking is also used for seeding so teams that qualified will probably have one of the worst seeds, therefore they will be stuck playing against top teams (in theory, but in practice somehow there is always a group of death in EPL consisting of 5 t1.5 teams). Blast is way worse in that regard, non partner t1.5/2 teams have to jump through hundred hoops to qualify for main event, which is not going to happen because you face teams like Heroic or Astralis on your way there (though you could say that team didn't deserve a spot anyway)

2022-04-30 19:11

no point to argue back bc i really think point is own by player like the current system just bc he got kick by Faze doesn't mean he lost all his point that he got by sacrifice himself i support an idea of hybrid point owner where the point is split among player and org, so rich org can't just bought player to compete in highest level, just like what C9 do for this Major partner team is different conversation bc we were talk about point system "By getting automatically invited they bypass the grind required to qualify for the events, especially Blast ones." partner team basically don't grind their spot, but buy their spot, so it's already different thing "they will get guaranteed points which will increase their points" you think tier2 team can get higher than last place in BLAST group? i dont think that can happen the reason why MIBR and EG got the last place bc their team is tier 2 material with rich org bc of org past achievement and also, i dont know the last place get a point for world ranking, i think they dont get any cmiiw "World ranking is also used for seeding so teams that qualified will probably have one of the worst seeds, therefore they will be stuck playing against top teams" seeding system always a problem no matter what you do bc the concept of seeding is to create a matchup between strong vs weak team, not strong vs strong in early part of tournament i like seeding pot system where you just group weak with weak, and strong with strong then using luck to decide the team journey "Blast is way worse in that regard, non partner t1.5/2 teams have to jump through hundred hoops to qualify for main event" BLAST placed their tournament as exclusive tournament like UCL in football, or NBA/NFL/MLS in US that's why they work fast to ensure MIBR lost their place (and EG soon imo) bc tier2 team compete in their tournament can disturb their position as exclusive high tier tournament BLAST do that bc the reason they were formed is that high tier exclusivity i dont like that concept as you do, but i get to see Astralis compete against big name is good for me

2022-04-30 19:55

Esl ranking depends on Esl tournaments participation which depends on Esl partnership 😴

2022-04-28 17:08

9 replies

The scene has been cemented for a few years now. Very few teams without partnerships like former Gambit or CPH Flames make it and manage to stay in participation at least for a while. It sucks.

2022-04-28 17:10

#30

2022-04-28 17:30

And? What else do you have in tier 1? You have Blast - which also has partner teams, and the Major - which is the only fair chance event. ESL Partners get points just by existing and playing each other in events they got invited it. This Fnatic would never play on this level if they had to do it from the bottom, as RMRs have shown. I didn't forget about T2 events btw, they just give you barely any points at all. AGO got as many for winning the entire ESEA Premier as BNB for winning ESEA Cash Cup NA. Then a few months later they get A LOT more for beating two teams in EPL one of which (EG) is godawful. The ranking is completely unbalanced.

2022-04-28 17:57

i think you got me wrong. i literally hate this esl's and blast's "partner team" crap. it's literally like if you have money you can rise in the rankings. it was not always used to be like that tho. i remember some high tier orgs were eliminating from esl pro league due to their bad results. there was a fair race between teams. now for eg, og and fnatic getting eliminated from RMR and im sure they don't give a fuck about that because they're already a partner team so they will always play in high tier events. but im happy that we witnessed some low tier teams smashing these ''tier 1" teams in RMR.

2022-04-28 18:22

Yeah guess I misunderstood, nvm

2022-04-28 18:37

The cemented scene is something I hate the most in CS

2022-04-28 17:48

every tournament affects esl world rankings

Yeah with eu tier 2 non-esl tournaments having 0.001 weight and aunz esl tournament 1000

2022-04-28 17:43

fuck ur so right and i hate that "partner team" system

2022-04-28 18:26

Good change but they still need to fix the ESL World Ranking

Does this mean no open qualifiers? Just rankings + affiliate event winners? I suppose the affiliate events would act as qualifiers in that case

2022-04-28 17:14

what does ''affiliate event" even means also this system is only for iem katowice and cologne*

2022-04-28 17:32

Let's say they talk to Blast and get a deal that Spring Finals winner gets a slot in Cologne. Or they hit up WePlay and have them set up a qualifier event. That's it, they just made a deal with another 3rd party organizer and have a slot on the line.

2022-04-28 17:59

Good thing 1 polish team can get a free iem katowice play-in slot. That team must give their everything to prove that they're better than some of those partner teams. Imagine ur not polish or german and try to play in katowice-cologne :D sad

2022-04-28 18:34

It's been like that for 2 years, so far it was Wisla twice because once it was Illuminar who won ESL MP and they disbanded shortly (Wisla was runner-up) after and a year later they themselves won ESL MP pre-Katowice Both times they went out 0-2 tho :c

2022-04-28 18:39

Katowice/Cologne already didn't have open qualifiers, it was all down to rankings. They just consolidated all in one ranking + opened the spots for some tournament winners.

2022-04-28 19:11

ez 4 Sproot

2022-04-28 17:31

better version of BLAST Premier Global Final Masters, Championship, and Major Champions get a place in Group Other less significant tournament Champions in Play-In they just cemented their position above BLAST