ESL announces changes to ESL Pro Tour 2024

ESL has announced changes to the ESL Pro Tour starting 2024. The changes impact the slot distribution and the qualifiers for the ESL Pro Tour 2024. Here’s all that was announced in the latest post.

North America will see a reduction in the number of spots for both IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne 2024. The two events are the marquee events of the ESL Pro Tour and feature a substantial prize pool. NA will see a reduction in its slots for the two events, down to one from the previous two. 

ESL Pro League Season 19 will see four World Ranking slots up from three. The Brazil Premier League Season 15 slot is now a South American qualifier slot (up two from one)

There are further changes in the events. The reduction comes in the form of removal of Elisa Masters Espoo as a qualifier event for Katowice. But there are also two extra World Ranking invites for Katowice and one for Cologne. ESL Meisterchaft has been replaced by a German qualifier which adds more clarity to the qualifying process for Cologne. 

IEM China 2024 will now feature an offliner qualifier. There will be a few invited teams (and the cutoff date for the same is January 8, 2024). But there won’t be a local Hero Invite, instead featuring an offline qualifier that will decide the best team from the region to make it to the event. 

IEM China 2024 takes place in April 2024 featuring a $250,000 prize pool. There will be 16 teams competing in China in a double-elimination group-stage event followed by a single-elimination knockout playoffs.

IEM Katowice 2024
- Removed Affiliate Event slot (Elisa in 2023).
- Reduced ESL World Ranking NA slots, from 2 to 1.
- 2 additional Global ESL World Ranking invites (8 instead of 6), which came from the removal of affiliate event and 1 NA ESL World Ranking slot.

IEM Cologne 2024
- Replaced ESL Meisterschaft slot with German qualifier slot.
- Reduced ESL World Ranking NA slots, from 2 to 1.
- 1 additional Global ESL World Ranking invite (8 instead of 7), which came from the removal of affiliate event and 1 NA ESL World Ranking slot.

EPL S19
- Global ESL World Ranking slots increased from 3 to 4.
- ESL Pro League EU Pre Qualifier Season 19 slots reduced from 2 to 1.
- ESL Brazil Premier League Season 15 slot replaced with an increased qualifier slot for South America (2 instead of 1).

EPL S20
- Added two new regions for ECL (ESL Challenger League) slots, South America and Oceania - both have 2 qualifying slots.
- Removed National Championship & open qualifier slots (those are replaced by new regions of ECL).
- Removed 1 Global ESL World Ranking slot (from 4 to 3).
- Added two Affiliate Event slots (one for EU Pre-Qualifier, one for TBD event).

IEM China 2024 (vs IEM Sydney)
- Replaced Local Hero Invite with Offline Qualifier.
- Decreased EU Qualifier slots from 2 to 1 and added 1 SA Qualifier slot instead.

ESL Challenger
We removed the South African slot and in some cases we replaced Local Hero Invite slots with local qualifiers.

You can find the full list of changes on the official page here.

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