Since the introduction of the ESL World Ranking we’ve made a couple of updates along the way to adjust to feedback, observations of how things play out in reality and changes to the ever changing Counter-Strike ecosystem.
Today we’re announcing an update which we believe will net out in a more fair and accommodating ESL World Ranking. While we announce the update today, it is important to note that the update (and thereby its rules) won’t be in effect until March 6th 2024. Why is that?
Due to some of the fundamental changes we are making in this update, the ranking would differ significantly if we applied these changes today. With multiple ESL World Ranking cutoff dates for events coming up shortly, we want to ensure teams and players have an adequate amount of time to adjust, ahead of the next set of invites for our live tournaments and qualifiers.
A few exceptions are being made to the above, a few changes will be implemented and go in effect immediately.
WHAT IS CHANGING IN THIS UPDATE?
IN EFFECT Immediately
- Regional multipliers adjusted
Adjustment to better match today's regional strength and opportunity, which will also help protect the best regional teams from being distanced by weaker teams that play a lot locally due to increase of regional competitions.
AS 4.5% » 5%
NA 26% » 20%
OC 9.5% » 8%
SA 7% » 14%
- Reduced number of pertinent teams in North America from 10 to 8
Originally the number of pertinent teams in North America was increased to 10 to counteract that a significant number of the top North American teams never played in local tournaments, a problem which over time has become less relevant.
- Merging regions
We are merging the regions EU and CIS for more precise evaluation of tournaments there (they had only been split to match Valve’s competition in the past).
WHAT IS CHANGING IN THIS UPDATE?
IN EFFECT MARCH 6TH 2024
- Stepping away from the pure "player model" to a mixed model
Even an intended change ("this player is no longer good for the team so we are getting a better one, but the new player has less points") would always severely impact the team's ranking for the worse, instead the new model is allowing one change per 120 days without any reductions and reducing the impact of further changes.
Changes of more than one player are not happening very often, and as long as that does not happen, no changes in the teams' points will happen.
- Improved recalculation method
If a team undergoes major changes, we have greatly improved the method of recalculation.
Previously we would just add the points of all players (capped at the old points that the team had), without any consideration of their composition, skill gap, experience together etc. The new method will take those things into account.
- Grinding prevention
We are adding a mechanism to limit the positive effect of playing a massive number of competitions. You will still be able to increase your points by getting better (higher points) results after reaching that limit of 6 contributing competitions, but no longer just plain adding as many competitions as you play.
- XXL size category increased and XXXL size category added
Extremely large tournaments with a huge number of pertinent teams will provide points for more participants and slightly more points per rank.
- Last place no points rule removed & “unmerited invites rule” added
This change is put in place to combat that regional teams that are the best in their region and beat all regional competition used to go to big events and potentially get last place, earn no points and miss small regional events where their competitors earn points.
- Website improvements
Added player pages and improved many details in terms of functionality and performance.
The full overview of the ESL World Ranking Rules following this update can be found here. We will continue to monitor the scene to ensure our ranking reflects its reality. Your input is also very valuable for us as we balance the ranking, so be sure to let us know through social media and Reddit threads what you think.
