ESL Challenger Season 49 set to the start tonight

This evening, ESL Challenger League Season 49 is set to kick off in North America, seeing sixteen teams set to compete in North America's top domestic league. During this transitional season of the league before the transition to the Valve Ranking System, (VRS), eight teams from last season have been joined joined by the champions of ESEA Advanced Season 50 and 51 and six teams from ESL Challenger League Season 49 Relegation.

With the stage set, five Bo1x2 will be played tonight, with notable teams in action including NRG, Party Astronauts, and Akimbo. Notably, this will be Alexander "br0" Bro's debut with NRG when his new team takes on Alter Iron tonight at 09:00PM.

Other notable teams set to make their debut in the league in short order include the new-look Nouns squads, the new BOSS lineup, and the rumored TSM lineup who are playing in the league under the Getting Info tag. Marsborne are also an interesting quintet to keep an eye on as the squad formed right before the start of ECL S49 and are pretty much a blank slate heading into the league.

The total $80,000 prize pool will be up for grabs with the winner taking home the lion's share of $25,000 and qualifying for ESL Pro League Season 22 in Stockholm. M80 won the last edition of ECL and NRG will join them at EPL Season 21 because of their second-place finish. However, due to ESL shifting to focus on invites from the Valve Ranking System (VRS) only one team will qualify to Pro League from ECL this season.

The team list for ECL S49 is as follows: