ESEA announce MDL Global Challenge schedule
The schedule and groups for ESEA MDL S26 Global Challenge in New York have been released. Effectively three different competitions are occurring at the same event, featuring a similar pool of teams.
Starting on Thursday, the online portion of the MDL league will be completed, where the champions of the EU and NA leagues will take a guaranteed spot into the next season of the ESL Pro League. Afterwards, the Global Challenge will start on Friday with two GSL-style groups followed by a best-of-three, single-elimination bracket concluding on Sunday.
From there the ESL Pro League relegation stage will commence, spanning the Sunday and Monday. The NA and EU games are set to be played alongside each other, culminating with the final two teams qualifying for season seven of the ESL Pro League.
The groups for the Global Challenge will look like:
| Group A | Group B |
 MDL #1 |
 MDL #1 |
| MDL #2 |
MDL #2 |
 Space Soldiers |
 GX |
 Chiefs |
Ghost Academy |
The full schedule is below, with all times in ET.
| Thursday, January 4th (MDL Finals) | ||
| 10:00 AM |  eXatus vs  AGO (EU Final) |
BO3 |
| 1:30 PM |  Rise Nation vs SoaR (NA Final) |
BO3 |
| Friday, January 5th | ||
| 10:00 AM | MDL #1 vs Chiefs |
BO1 |
| 11:30 AM | MDL #2 vs Space Soldiers |
BO1 |
| 1:00 PM | MDL #1 vs Ghost Academy |
BO1 |
| 2:30 PM | MDL #2 vs GX |
BO1 |
| 4:00 PM | Group A Winners | BO1 |
| 5:30 PM | Group B Winners | BO1 |
| 7:00 PM | Group A Losers | BO1 |
| 8:30 PM | Group B Losers | BO1 |
| Saturday, January 6th | ||
| 5:00 PM | Group A Decider | BO1 |
| 6:00 PM | Group B Decider | BO1 |
| 7:00 PM | Semi-Final #1 | BO3 |
| 9:00 PM | Semi-Final #2 | BO3 |
| Sunday, January 7th | ||
| 10:00 AM | Global Challenge Final | BO3 |
| 2:00 PM | Space Soldiers vs  Na`Vi |
BO3 |
| 2:00 PM |  GODSENT vs MDL #2 |
BO3 |
| 6:00 PM | GX vs Rogue |
BO3 |
| 6:00 PM | Ghost vs MDL #2 |
BO3 |
| Monday, January 8th | ||
| 10:00 AM | NA Relegation LR 1 | BO3 |
| 10:00 AM | EU Relegation LR 1 | BO3 |
| 2:00 PM | NA Relegation UR 1 | BO3 |
| 2:00 PM | EU Relegation UR 1 | BO3 |
| 6:00 PM | NA Decider | BO3 |
| 6:00 PM | EU Decider | BO3 |
With the tournament set to begin on Thursday, the ESEA portion shall be streamed on their Twitch channel, before moving to the ESL YouTube for the Pro League relegation phase.
