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On Friday, ESL announced changes for the Counter-Strike 2 ESL Challenger League in 2025, revolving around the implementation of Valve’s new regulations.
ESL Challenger League, which will enter its 49th season in January 2025, will retain its status as a critical part of the ESL Pro Tour ecosystem, designed to offer competitive opportunities for players who want to enter the professional Counter-Strike scene and serve as a gateway for ESL Pro League.
For the next season, ESL confirmed a $580,000 prize pool for the ESL Challenger League across five regions – Oceania, Europe, South America, North America, and Asia.
#ESLChallengerLeague in 2025!
Players can earn their first VRS points on the path from @ESEA Open to #ESLProLeague with a revised ESLChallengerLeague adapting to meet Valve's new regulations! ⚙️
Check out the full blogpost below! 👇 pic.twitter.com/bildVzLzpq
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) December 20, 2024
Due to the different number of teams and the strength of the regions, the prize pool will not be distributed equally.
– Europe (24 teams): $100,000
– North America (16 teams): $80,000
– South America (16 teams): $60,000
– Asia (16 teams): $40,000
– Oceania (10 team): $10,000
Besides revealing the prize pool, ESL announced that the 49th season will honour the existing requalification system and qualification pathways through the ESEA League.
The 50th season will use a different approach.
Starting with the second season of 2025, the ESL Challenger League will transition to issuing invites based on Valve Regional Standings (VRS) across all regions.
Challenger League invites will be sent after the first available VRS ranking of the month – July 2025 for Challenger League Season 50.
The CS2 teams invited based on the VRS will join squads that will earn promotion through the highest ESEA League divisions.
The teams will no longer qualify from the previous ECL seasons and will be demoted to the ESEA League division if they do not earn a spot for the next season through VRS.
Despite the announced changes, the Challenger League will continue serving as a qualification tournament for the bi-annual ESL Pro League; however, only the winning team from each region will qualify for the upcoming season of the ESL Pro League.
Previously, the regional Challenger League winners and runners-up received ESL Pro League invites.
To compensate ECL runners-up, ESL will organise additional ESL Pro League qualifiers in the four regions.
ESL Challenger League resumes with Season 49 on January 21, 2025. The season will run until May 11, followed by a three-month break ahead of ESL Challenger League Season 50, which is scheduled for August 5 – November 16, 2025.
