ESEA announce plans to cap size of Advanced and Main
Screenshots of the ESEA Advanced/Main support Discord server surfaced this morning revealing the intent for ESEA to limit the size of the two leagues. The proposed change would limit ESEA Advanced to 64 teams and ESEA Main to 192 teams starting after this season, in Season 51.
The proposed changes have received positive feedback across the board from players who welcome the purge of superfluous rosters that will come at the end of this season. Interpreting the message itself, this change would do away with the cutoff point for "safety" in ESEA Advanced and force teams to fight through the whole season to ensure that they remain in the top 64. Dust2.us reached out to a few of North America's veterans of the ESEA Advanced scene for some input on the proposed change.
Max "SolGoat" Wallace had the following to say:
I believe ESEA loosened the requirement to stay in Advanced in NA specifically either since CS2 or a couple of seasons before it to grow the division, since then the rule has been NA teams need 4 or more wins to keep advanced spot this was great initially during 12 game seasons & as a way [to] increase the size of the division, but in the last 2 seasons with 14 match seasons back, only 8 teams that didn't die were relegated, 3 in S47 and 5 last season. This plus the extra invites and fast track qualifiers the last few seasons has made the Advanced division grow to 80 teams this season, so I think ESEA is making a great decision to tighten the requirements to maintain your advanced spot again now that the division is the same size as the EU division.
As SolGoat noted, at some point logistically it made sense to maintain the size of Advanced with rosters constantly dying off and others being known to use it as a stepping stone to speed run into ECL via the invite slot, but having a four-win threshold to maintain your standing in the ESEA ladder is woefully insufficient to gatekeep what is supposed to be the penultimate league in the domestic scene of North America. When looking across the pond, EU ESEA Advanced is a mix of academy rosters for tier-one and two teams and even some Major-qualifying organizations that are in rebuild mode. Tightening requirements to remain in Advanced should, in theory, increase the quality of the league to the point that there is more parity amongst regional ESEA Advanced teams and incentivize North American rosters to work together as a unit to improve rather than constantly scrapping projects and starting anew instead.
Collin "CoJoMo" Moren chimed in with the following thoughts:
The new changes are very important for maintaining quality through the divisions. While the change makes it much harder to progress through the higher ranks, it means that players who are Main+ have a much more prestigious role in the scene. If we can improve the quality across the board from players, organizations, and fans maybe we will see more investment and opportunities coming back into our domestic scene. Embrace these changes as a competitor and continue to fight to the top.
CoJoMo's "survival of the fittest" take looks at the scene from more of a 10,000 foot view, taking things a step further than noting the tighter requirements and considering the downstream ramifications. If the quality of gameplay improves in ESEA Advanced, then the rising tide will lift all ships and sponsorship/organizational opportunities may become more readily available. It is often discussed what needs to be done to Save NA CS, perhaps with time this will be ESEA's contribution when we all look back.
Regardless of your take on the situation, I'm sure that we can all agree that this upcoming ESEA Advanced season is going to be more fiercely contested than any other in recent memory.
