Five top 15 teams set for ESL Challenger Katowice

30-9-2024 11:47

The event in Katowice promises a highly competitive affair, with Eternal Fire among the attendees.

Eternal Fire will be the highest-ranked squad in attendance

The team list is now set for ESL Challenger Katowice 2024, a $100,000 LAN tournament set to run October 25-27. It will be among the most stacked Challenger events to ever take place, with five top 15-ranked squads set to attend.

Eternal Fire, MIBR and Falcons were all directly invited to the event, whilst SAW and paiN made it through the Europe and South America closed qualifiers respectively. B8 also earned a spot via the Europe closed qualifier, Legacy OCE qualified through the North America closed qualifier, and Monte grabbed the berth on offer via the Poland open qualifier.

The event promises to be perhaps the most competitive ESL Challenger LANs ever played, as five of the teams attending are currently ranked in the top 15. For context, ECL Jönköping and Melbourne earlier in the year sported three and zero top 15 teams respectively, whilst ECL Atlanta, scheduled for October 4-6, sports one.

Eternal Fire will be the highest-ranked team attending and firm favourites to take the trophy, following their recent exploits at ESL Pro League Season 20 and subsequent rise up the world ranking. MIBR will be another team on the radars of many, not only after a strong EPL 20 showing, but also due to their recent signing of Lucas "⁠Lucaozy⁠" Neves.

Lucaozy replaces brnz4n on MIBR

SAW's campaign will be of specific interest to plenty of the community too. The Portuguese side haven't attended a LAN event since their stunning top-four run at IEM Cologne, having largely played in online qualifiers in that time.

The event in Poland is also set to be Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev's LAN debut for Falcons. The Ukrainian superstar recently signed on loan for the Saudi organization until the end of the year, and his form will be of great interest after a year without a team.

Official: s1mple joins Falcons on loan

The eight teams will be split into two four-man GSL-style groups, where opening and winner's matches will be BO1, whilst the rest are BO3. The top two teams will proceed to a single-elimination BO3 playoff bracket. Not only is a prize pool of $100,000 up for grabs, but also a spot for ESL Pro League Season 21, adding another layer of intrigue to the event.

The team list for ESL Challenger Katowice 2024 is:

mibr is like top 40 max

2024-09-30 11:48

2 replies

you can consult ranking on hltv, mibr is currently #14.

2024-09-30 13:58

Top 15 Hltv ranking + top 21 Valve Ranking hltv.org/valve-ranking/teams/2024/septem..

2024-09-30 19:05

so it will have hltv mvp, right?

11 replies

you need 3 top 10 as far as i remember

2024-09-30 11:52

3 replies

Theoretically, only one top-10 team, good competition, and a high price pool are necessary for LAN events. Usually for ESL Challenger events 2 top 10 teams were required as a criterion in the last years.

2024-09-30 12:03

according to the tweet you posted then it should have it, if 100k are considered enough

2024-09-30 13:19

1 reply

Yeah, we will see. HLTV is not very transparent with their decision regarding MVP worthy tournaments. If Saw and EF stay within the top 10, it should get an MVP. If only one team is within the top 10, it could be just an event without an MVP as well. We had an ESL Challenger Event in 2022 with only one top 10 Team and no MVP for example.

2024-09-30 17:35

no, Challenger tournaments don't give hltv MVP achievements

2024-09-30 11:53

6 replies

but sdy got jönköping mvp

2024-09-30 11:55

if saw stays a top 10 team during challenger katowice, it might actually have an mvp (i seriously doubt it though)

2024-09-30 12:08

atalanta 2023 and jönköping 2023 had an mvp

2024-09-30 12:04

I don't know the exact criteria, but I believe it must be something related to the participation of a certain number of TOP 10 teams or something like that... but honestly, having an MVP of a Challenger Event seems like something without much relevance

2024-09-30 12:32

here is a post from a HLTV employee on Twitter in 2022 concerning this topic x.com/Tgwri1s/status/1535260511805349891

2024-09-30 12:57

u need 2 top teams pwetty sure

2024-09-30 15:21

Left column teams vs right column is like day and night difference lmao

2024-09-30 11:49

Yes, that's because they are sorted by HLTV rank.

2024-09-30 14:54

im sad theres a good chance these events will go in 2025 :( this looks like a good tourney + hype to see b8 at lan

2024-09-30 11:51

+1 We actually need more tournaments like this for a healthy scene, a good number of this teams is too good for tier 2 but fall short in tier 1, this is the ide tournament for this type of team, sad to see it being undervalued.

2024-10-01 07:57

EF-Falcons in final

bold of you to assume s1mple will get out of groups in his second returning to lan after 7 months without playing an official

2024-09-30 12:00

and? you got some trust issues

2024-09-30 14:20

ez for m0nesy

ez4s1mple

why 3 BR teams?

13 replies

legacy qualified from na qualifier how's that allowed

2024-09-30 11:57

10 replies

it's incredibly unfair tbh. they get to have a SA qualifier, abuse NA qualifier and then ontop of that get a ranking invite... I'd much rather have seen an NRG / Nouns at this event just to balance it out more and grow the global scene. it is beautiful not having to see an oceanic team to go 0-26 though

2024-09-30 11:58

9z has done the same, but they have come to EU. Valve and ESL should add a minimum time for location lock or maximum swaps per season to prevent this abuses

2024-09-30 12:07

its kind of different with EU cuz EU is like a global hub for cs, different regions play here to ascend their cs level, unlike NA where legacy is there only to farm easier qualifiers, imagine the outrage if for example OG went to NA to farm their qualifiers

2024-09-30 12:53

NA and SA should be changed into Americas and they all should play together, they should stop this NA and SA separate qualifier bullshit

2024-09-30 15:28

It's not their foult that NA teams are trash and can't qualify

2024-09-30 17:38

What a stupid thought. There are 3 Brazilian teams because they got the places. Around 12 countries compete in the SA qualifiers, the winner is the Brazilian. North and Central America has 23 countries, the winner is Brazil (established in NA for administrative reasons, not for sporting reasons). Now does this mean that it is unfair to call teams well placed in the event Ranking? They are not participating in the event because they are Brazilian, they are participating on merit. Furthermore, OG is a team on the same level as teams competing in NA.

2024-09-30 20:24

cry is free, its not our fault that the NA teams are weak

2024-10-01 21:55

Legacy live and play in NA, they do not participate in any SA qualifiers. Not even for the major.

2024-09-30 14:55

but the lineup is brazillian so they should be playing in sa qualifier. even though they have to travel to sa or something. imagine falcons plays in apac rmr because the org is arab

2024-09-30 15:22

I don't think it's really that big of a deal and it raises the level of CS played in NA. Typically, you won't hear many complaints from NA CS pros because they know if they can't beat a team like Legacy they likely won't be competitive internationally either. Your example with Falcons doesn't really make a good comparison because Legacy is an SA org. The Middle East is also much closer to Europe ping-wise so teams there can regularly play against each other. Also, the unspoken implication in your example the Falcons would likely dominate any other Middle Eastern team and qualify for every event, while the same is not true for Legacy.

2024-09-30 16:09

MIBR invited by ranking Pain for the SA Qualifier and Legacy for the NA Qualifier (classic BR stealing NA spots)

2024-09-30 12:37

There had been 4 BR teams in ESL Challenger Valencia 2022 (2 Invitee, 1 NA qualifier, 1 SA qualifier) And all of them were eliminated in group stage. Furia was an NA team before 2023.

2024-10-01 06:33

this event probably proves if s1mple is still s1mple or now a sample

2024-09-30 11:54

bo1 in 2025

2024-09-30 11:56

bo1 is bullshit

2024-09-30 12:06

EZ4SAW

How is someone like s1mple not even mentioned once in the article?

Yeah it's crazy, I even forgot s1mple is playing this event

2024-09-30 12:21

"The event in Poland is also set to be Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev's LAN debut for Falcons. The Ukrainian superstar recently signed on loan for the Saudi organization until the end of the year, and his form will be of great interest after a year without a team."

kkkkkkkkkkkk they mentioned him in the beginning and i didnt finish reading

2024-09-30 14:17

good luck ef

2024-09-30 12:13

No crowd?

2024-09-30 12:20

monte ez

2024-09-30 13:33

Can u buy tickets for that? I would love to attend this

2024-09-30 14:07

I guess not... I'd also buy some.

2024-09-30 14:11

ez for saw mibr final

2024-09-30 14:16

Monte is finished in Katowice holy hell

2024-09-30 15:29

shopee katowice

2024-09-30 17:54

Half of the attending players in this Polish event will be native speakers of Portuguese (the 3 BR teams + SAW). Interesting bit of trivia for a HLTV Confirmed "Who Wants to be a Skinionaire?" question in a-year-or-two's time I suppose

2024-10-01 07:10