ESL Impact League Season 6 North America begins today

After almost three months, the ESL Impact League is back with the Regional Stage. Eight teams in North America will fight for a Season 7 invite, which will be given to the Top 4. Only the best of the region will travel to Stockholm to play the LAN Final.

This season, NA will feature a great mix of new and experienced names. Completely new squads, such as Lotus, Imp Pact, and Aware Impact, have managed to qualify, joining the usual suspects like FlyQuest RED, TSM Shimmer, Blue Otter Karma, and Nouns fe.

One roster core that isn't new is Lumen's, which features Daria "daria" Anokhina, Iuliia "sckrafft" Gerasimova, and Kiki "PiggyKiki" Long. Two unknown European colleagues will join them, Polina "lvmylv" and "s4kUra". Only FlyQuest RED kept the same lineup from the end of Season 5, as the team hopes to keep their ESL Impact League winning streak going.

Karma have joined Blue Otter, a C9-affiliated organization, as the squad has finally managed to get some organizational help since its inception and has also made a roster change, adding former Saints player Anna "buhnny" Cheung to replace Carolynn "artStar" Noquez. Back in mid-July, TSM Shimmer dropped the news that Juliana "Juli" Tosic would join the squad after it parted ways with Abigail "abby" Deters, adding even more firepower to the team.

This season will be harder for NA teams to reach the final stage of the ESL Impact League, as only one squad can claim a spot in the LAN Final. The fight for the top spot is expected to be mainly between FlyQuest RED and TSM Shimmer, but with the abundance of new names flooding in, there also is the possibility for a surprising first place. Teams can't forget that a Top 4 finish will secure a presence in the next season, which is unknown if it will maintain the number of spots in the LAN Final the same as in Season 6.

The first series of the season will be: