Tournament organizer ESL has announced that the qualification format for two key events of the year will change from 2023. Before this, the system functioned as follows: based on the results of other ESL events throughout the year, 16 of the 24 teams that would advance to the play-in and main stage of the main tournaments were determined. The rest were selected based on the results of the ESL World Ranking and the ESL National Championship in Poland or Germany.
Starting with IEM Katowice 2023, the organizer will no longer use the ESL Pro Tour rankings, and all invites will be distributed based on the ESL World Ranking. Some slots will be distributed based on the results of other key ESL events, in particular, the Pro League season, the previous major and up to three more “partner competitions” that will be chosen by the organizers.
ESL explains that the purpose of these changes – simplify the selection procedure in the tournament cycle, since the organizers believed that using two rating systems at the same time made it too difficult for players. In a situation where one team wins multiple qualifiers, the remaining unoccupied slots will be awarded based on the ESL World Ranking. If partner competitions are not selected, this rating will be used to allocate slots assigned to them.
