Wildcard, M80 set to headline ESL Challenger League S49

With ESL Challenger League Season 48 Relegation wrapping up on December 15th, the team list for ESL Challenger League Season 49 has been completed, assuming the league maintains its format for 2025 and there are no last-minute drop outs from ESL's tier-two league.

As with previous seasons, most of the cream of the crop from the NA scene are in attendance, with Wildcard, M80, and NRG being the top-ranked Valve Ranking System (VRS) squads in attendance.

While M80 won ECL S48 last year and are widely considered one of NA's best squads, Wildcard have had a fairly remarkable purple patch of form in recent weeks, qualifying to the Perfect World Shanghai Major with a 3-0 record in the Americas RMR and advancing out of the Opening Stage with a 3-2 record. With this and M80 themselves failing to make the Major, it would be fair to say they're the top team in the division until M80 demonstrates otherwise.

Going down the list, other strong teams undoubtedly include the likes of Legacy, Party Astronauts, Nouns, and BOSS while FLUFFY AIMERS have been impressing in recent weeks.

This season is also set to feature a number of international squads vying for spots in playoffs, with E-Xolos LAZER, Revenge Nation, Akimbo, and Make Your Mind all featuring cores of predominating South American, European, and even Asian players.

There will also be a lot of excitement around Undone in ECL as the roster features an experienced core around Josh "steel" Nissan that notably features Major champion Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham.

With the final teams qualifying, the complete team list for ESL Challenger League Season 49 consists of:

ESL are yet to release the format or dates for ESL Challenger League Season 49, however it is expected to start sometime after the Winter Player Break and feature a similar format to previous seasons.