ESL Challenger returns to Melbourne with $100,000 tournament

12-2-2024 13:39

Eight top teams will compete in Australia for a spot in ESL Pro League Season 20.

ESL has announced that the upcoming Challenger event will take place in Melbourne, the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, between April 26-28.

This marks the third year in a row in which the Australian city will host a stop in the ESL Challenger tournament series, which replaced DreamHack Open. In 2022, paiN beat Imperial to the title in an all-Brazilian final. Last year, Movistar Riders lifted the trophy after beating Bad News Eagles in the tournament decider.

ESL Challenger Melbourne will feature eight teams, who will duke it out for the first prize of $50,000 and a spot in ESL Pro League Season 20.

Four slots will be filled by the winners of qualifiers held in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia. Three teams will be invited based on the ESL World Ranking, while the final spot will go to a local team.

The Australian tournament is the first of four Challenger events that will be held in 2024. The other three will take place in Jönköping (June 14-16), Atlanta (October 4-6) and Katowice (November 22-24).

Complexity ez

2024-02-12 13:40

5 replies

Donk wins these

2024-02-12 13:47

4 replies

no plz let my goat elige farm some tourneys( that's unfair

2024-02-12 13:49

3 replies

Elige washed

2 replies

nuh-uh

2024-02-12 13:50

Nope

2024-02-13 10:09

YTB

2024-02-12 13:41

Hoping sydney returns later on in the year like last year

2024-02-12 13:42

22 replies

No more IEMs in Australia, only ESL Challengers :(

2024-02-12 13:48

thats fucked Melbourne was okay but as someone who traveled from sydney it was a somewhat at times bias crowd

2024-02-12 13:56

source?

2024-02-12 14:49

Spunj on one of the hltv confirmeds stated that iem fall isn't going to be sydney.

2024-02-12 17:06

Intel rep at IEM Syd leaked it accidently lol

2024-02-12 20:38

That's sad :(

2024-02-12 16:20

Read somewhere that iem Sydney got scrapped for good

2024-02-12 13:51

iem fall is the same dates as pax aus you cappin for sure

2024-02-12 13:53

incredibly upset.

2024-02-12 13:54

I think SPUNJ mentioned we’re not going back to Sydney this year. So we’re going back to somewhere in NA, EU, or Asia most likely.

8 replies

ESL don't know what they are doing man

Sadly its the AU timezone. Its a lot harder to get sponsors since the viewership will be so reduced (due to timezones)

2024-02-12 14:03

There’s no benefit in hosting events in Australia. It’s expensive with almost no return, timezone sucks, etc. And before you argue that events are hosted in Asia so timezone isn’t an excuse, economic return is 100 times more likely than Australia ever could.

2024-02-12 14:06

there was rumors that it's going to be in brazil

2024-02-12 17:02

god help us if it’s Brazil. Would rather see it be in France or China again than there

2024-02-12 17:03

1 reply

I would kill for Iem Prague

2024-02-13 10:12

ew no

2024-02-13 03:28

Yeah, Chinese cast Searph said the Fall IEM tournament would be held in Rio and last year's Sydney tournament was one-off to replace that in China

2024-02-14 04:36

heard from someone that it could be melb this year, combined with pax aus which would make sense since the dates for IEM Fall and pax aus line up perfectly. esl did the same thing last year with sxsw so wouldn't be surprised tbh

2024-02-12 14:04

ever considered that we may not be heading back to Australia this time?

2024-02-12 14:20

Yeah Pax Aus in Melbourne is the same date as IEM Fall so mega hopium its Melbourne this year. I would travel over from Perth again to attend if thats the case

2024-02-12 14:25

Unlikely Pax i think is always in the exhibition centre and iem Melbourne would have to be rod laver

2024-02-12 16:10

Im guessing spirit will be here by ranking.

9 replies

Lmao they can get all big event invites why would they play smaller events

2024-02-12 13:43

7 replies

For epl 20 spot

epl 20 is very far away.. at that point Spirit will just get an invite...

2024-02-12 13:58

Yeah true but more tournaments to play as well. And it's a guaranteed spot

2024-02-12 14:02

it’s a guaranteed spot man

2024-02-12 14:07

guaranteed EPL spot duh

Epl s 20 invites will be sent on april- may i guess. Even they dont play any tournament until that time they still get the invite

2024-02-12 14:11

EPL 20 invites are sent out in late June.

that's VP

EZ4KOI

Cap

2024-02-12 13:46

the council/commitee of cs: not only should aussie casters do the casting for this event, they should also be given the opportunity to do so on the world stage. to talents of last aussie event: i love it when you antagonize the crowd, whoever you are, and if you read this, do it more. be like vince mcmahon. and i hope you find your way to the world stage to replace banks, henryg, anders, kassad.

please be like vince mcmahon the character not the person

been watching his stage performance lately (because of his recent news, it reminded me of good times) you know its staged and he's always over exaggerating to point its absurd, but its still funny and entertaining.

2024-02-12 14:00

Another excuse to travel to melbourne again

Aussie crowd Pog Aussie timezone dog

2024-02-12 13:57

ESL should fly Aussie fans to European elite events. As Katowice showed you need some help.

2024-02-12 14:29

Dont know about Katowice, but usually there always is a group of Aussies at Cologne.

2024-02-12 18:38

It would have to be the one weekend the Weagles are in QLD all year and I therefore get to see them live. :/

ahh dilemma, might not see Harley up there for a while

2024-02-12 14:42

I'm going, already booked everything bar the tickets. And since it is the gold coast, that can be a walk up anyway.

2024-02-12 15:42

Donk probably reading this thinking about the 100k he’s about to steal from all these t2-3 teams.

2024-02-12 14:12

spirit ain't playing this event

2024-02-12 16:57

Why are you responding with this? Literally 0 teams have been announced for ESL Melbourne 2024, Spirit do not have any tournaments going on in April when this event will be held, so they will most likely qualify either from ESL ranking or through the CQ so they will have a LAN to play in for April. Also it was very clearly a joke.

2024-02-12 18:09

Better than Sydney but still different time zone :(

2024-02-12 14:22

Guess they will have to invite the reigning Champion

2024-02-12 15:11

100k? This will not cover travel and hotel cost for any team but the winner...

2024-02-12 16:02

These days tournament organizers usually pay for that kind of stuff. It is probably why it is an 8 team tournament.

2024-02-12 16:48

No IEM Melbourne It’s over

2024-02-12 21:22

As always owners of Challenger state will get this title, which is VP)

2024-02-13 05:56

Looks like I’m heading to Melb this year then.

2024-02-13 06:01

tournament prize is 1week falcon players salary

2024-02-13 06:36

No SA qualys ? Afraid of br + 9z/bestia ?

2024-02-13 11:59

TEAM PREDICT: Local Hero: Rooster Ranking: COL,Monte,ENCE Europe Qualifier: hard to predict, maybe KOI king of DreamHack North America Qualifier: Liquid Asia Qualifier: Lynn Vision (MongolZ and Tyloo are bootcamping in Europe) Oceania Qualifier: making history (Grayhound didn't enter)

2024-02-14 04:45