ESL Challenger League Season 43 set to begin

25-10-2022 18:42

A raft of IEM Rio Major attendees will be taking part with spots for the ESL Pro League Conference on offer.

The next season of ESL's Challenger League kicks off October 25, with teams in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific competing in their respective divisions for a spot in Season 17 of the EPL Conference.

In Europe, 24 teams featuring the likes of Spirit, Sprout and Bad News Eagles will do battle through a double elimination best-of-three bracket, with the grand final being best-of-five. The team who makes the final through the upper bracket will enjoy a 1-0 map advantage.

Spirit are among the IEM Rio Major attendees taking part

Spirit will find themselves the favourites to take the European division title as they are comfortably the highest ranked team in attendance, however they have been known to falter in lower-tier online competition, having crashed out of the recent CCT South Europe Series 1 at the hands of Tricked.

9INE, who won the previous iteration of the league mere days ago, are seeded directly into the round-of-16 and will be hoping to continue the rise that victory afforded them in the world rankings, where they now sit at No. 39.

9INE snatch spot at ESL Pro League Season 17 Conference

The North American portion of the league features 16 teams split between two round-robin best-of-three groups, with the top four teams from each group progressing to a double-elimination best-of-three playoff bracket. As in Europe, the grand final will be best-of-five, with the upper bracket team having a map advantage.

MIBR are the highest ranked team in attendance in North America, and they will be looking to bounce back after being eliminated in third place in Season 42 after losing to Nouns and ATK. ATK, who eventually bested Nouns 3-1 in the grand final of Season 42, will be hoping to make it two wins in a row.

ATK secure spot at EPL Season 17 Conference

The Asian-Pacific division is already underway, with favourites like Lynn Vision and Major attendees IHC securing 2-0 wins in their opening games.

The European section will kick off October 25 at 19:00 , with IEM Rio Legends spot holders Sprout taking on UNGENTIUM.
Information on where you can follow the action can be found on the match page.

As for North America, the first matches take place on October 26 at 02:00 , with Snakes Den matching up against Kari and Mythic facing off against Nouns. Those two games will be featured on the ESL B stream and the main ESL stream respectively.

The opening matches are:

Europe

October 25
19:00 Sprout vs UNGENTIUM

October 26
19:00 PALOMA vs Bad News Eagles

North America

October 26
02:00 Mythic vs Nouns
02:00 Snakes Den vs Kari

pog

2022-10-25 18:43

Hltv ignoring asia like always...

7 replies

Its europe lol

2022-10-25 18:44

5 replies

at the bottom it says europe & NA but not asia (the reason is there is no asian esl league btw)

2022-10-25 18:47

4 replies

There is ecl league for asia but hltv decided not to add it.

2022-10-25 18:50

2 replies

thats fucked

2022-10-25 19:22

1 reply

Yeah they only show playoffs. Not really fair but think it's a betting thing (Matchfixing in Asia is so big that HLTV just doesnt show their matches)

2022-10-25 19:42

liquipedia.net/counterstrike/ESL/Challen..

2022-10-25 18:54

2022-10-25 18:45

As I commented in another match thread, EU should have 1 direct spot to EPL and Conference spots should be revamped making it less random. Just look at how stacked this event is.

There's six teams who make EPL from conference. and like 12 spots at conference are from EU leagues. Plus you've got the ESL Challengers events that tend to have a lot of top tier 2 EU teams. If they dont make it it's their own fault

2022-10-25 19:45

Events like ESL Spain or Benelux have gotten spots for presumably some agreement and teams in Challenger EU who make top3 are way stronger than that. Let's avoid comparison with the other Challenger Leagues, as top teams in those regions can compete with EU for sure, but the rest of the pack is very mediocre. Also the fact that these ESL Challenger LAN events give you spot in Conference just feels weird, since these teams will always compete in Challenger but it can become a filler event at some point, and open up some weird cases where the ESL Ranking decides who gets to EPL. Giving the #1 team in EU a direct spot would make sense in my opinion, makes them not have to go play a whole event they will probably make it out of anyway. Challenger require crazy consistency and a burst in form to qualify. It's just too confusing, since there's many ways to qualify for EPL (Challenger League/Events before Conference which makes CL become filler sometimes, and the world ranking which makes relegated teams like Spirit play in this event when they likely don't have to anyway). Not making it is definitely their fault since everyone is on an equal foot in conference, but the sheer dificulty of winning this event is more than enough to prove you deserve a spot, once again, in my opinion.

2022-10-25 19:59

3 replies

That's fair enough, but if they do win the event and make conference they should easily make it through anyway right? All giving them a direct EPL invite would do is take a spot away from Conference, which just kinda overcomplicates things (with there now only being 5 spots, perhaps not that difficult but still inconvenient). Plus ECL is online, while Conference is on LAN. If anything the international LAN's (Melborne, Rotterdam, etc.) should give a spot straight to EPL since it's a LAN and goes across all regions. Overall I think giving ECL EU a straight spot to EU is just unnecessary, but I respect your opinion

2022-10-25 20:04

You could still maintain conference spots and remove ESL Ranking spots, but this can be a problem for solid teams like that don't have a Partner Spot and rely on ranking alone to qualify (not sure how many spots Ranking gets and which teams this could affect)

2022-10-25 20:08

Ranking gets (i believe) 3 spots. Might be 4. The major teams this would affect would probably just be C9 and OG, but maybe TSM would also be hurt if they make a good enough roster when they come back. and honestly, I agree that Conference is a bit too random at times. Illuminar and FTW made it to qualification matches last time, and teams like BNE werent even there. I think maybe they need to add more teams to conference, and give ECL spots for top 2 (but also do this for NA and Asia to be a bit more fair)

2022-10-25 20:12

no 9z, no party.

spirit will somehow fuck it up

Fantasy?

2022-10-25 18:48

Sprout will save tactics for major online game +1,5 opponent

2022-10-25 18:51

Challenger 42 end two days ago and we already have 43?

2022-10-25 19:21

It is weird

2022-10-25 19:43

last season ended 2 days ago and now already starting the next season wtf LOL

2022-10-26 00:47

ESL keeps making these formats worse and worse with every season. Back a few seasons ago qualifying to one of those was great, you got a chance for a direct ticket to EPL and playing many games against top tier 2 opposition. Nowadays, you can lose 2 games and you're out... It has "League" in its name, but it features a knockout round, lol

2022-10-26 01:22

Atleast it’s not groups which is worse, prefer this format over groups… yeah now they changed format to incorporate a LAN tournament I guess and to get international teams to come over to EU/ get experience…

2022-10-26 12:59