ECL S47 to feature Bo2 format, reduced prizepool, Relegation changes
ESL have announced a slew of changes for ESL Challenger League heading into Season 47, which is set to be the first iteration of the league to run exclusively on Counter-Strike 2. The league, which now features two seasons per year, is set to see Season 47 run from February 13th to June 9th and will feature a number of changes to the previous season's format. With that in mind, Dust2.us will be breaking down the most significant changes below.
Format Changes
For Season 47, the most striking change is ESL's decision to move ECL away from a Bo3 format into a Bo2 format. In particular, each team will now play each other once in two consecutive Bo1 matches during the group stage. With this, the top ten teams from the group stage will advance into playoffs, 11th and 12th place will stay in the league, 13th and 14th place will be sent to relegation, and 15th and 16th place will be directly demoted down to ESEA Advanced.
The format of playoffs is currently the same as Season 46, with the winner of the league and the runner-up both qualifying to ESL Pro League Season 20.
Prizepool Changes
While only mentioned in passing, ESL have confirmed that the prizepool for ESL Challenger League in North America has been reduced from $100,000 to $80,000. This change, without further explanation is odd, as over in EU and APAC their prizepools have remained untouched while South America and ANZ have been given $40,000 and $10,000 prizepools, respectively, thus seeing NA as the only region to lose prizepool in between seasons.
Relegation Changes
ESL Challenger League Relegation has also seen a drastic overhaul heading into Season 47. To start, the total number of teams competing in Relegation every season has been reduced from eight teams to just six teams, with two teams coming from ECL, three from ESEA Advanced, and one potential rarely-used Invite slot.
As ESEA Advanced is set to run four seasons per year while ECL only features two, ESL have introduced a new points system to determine the three (or four) squads from ESEA Advanced that will play Relegation. In essence, teams will have a higher chance of qualifying to Relegation if they make playoffs in the "early season" and the "late season", with there being a slight bias to the "late season" in the allocation of points.
The full breakdown of points, and the two-stage bracket for Relegation can be seen below:
Overall, these changes represent a significant shift to how NA's premier semi-professional league is set to be run heading into CS2. Already some players and coaches have given their opinions on the changes, with EG Gold's Joeseph "muenster" Lima calling the format changes "straight garbage", while Bobby "stamina" Eitrem said they were the "worst changes I've ever seen to ECL."
