How it Works

ESL Pro Tour

Tiers

Masters Championships: take place twice a year and are the most prestigious CS:GO tournaments outside of Major tournaments. Both IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne witness the most devastating teams from around the globe compete in the most iconic arenas for a prize purse of $1,000,000, EPT points and an Intel® Grand Slam contribution to the victors. Masters Championships include 16 teams that qualify from the ESL Pro Tour points race, the ESL World Rankings and the ESL National Championships.
Masters tournaments: are where the elite teams of CS:GO compete in packed stadiums for $250,000 and an abundance of EPT points. Masters Tournaments are a vital opportunity for teams around the world to enhance their campaigns in the EPT points race and qualify to a Masters Championship.
Challenger: is imperative within the ESL Pro Tour as teams compete regionally in order to earn EPT points and qualify for Masters tournaments. Challenger tournaments are fundamental to the EPT as they act as the entry point for regional talent to earn their opportunity to compete at Masters tournaments. An example of Challenger level tournaments are DreamHack Open, ESEA Premier League or ESL National Championships. The victors of Challenger level tournaments receive invites to the next upcoming Masters tournament and also earn valuable EPT points.

ESL Pro Tour

Points 

All competitions within the ESL Pro Tour offer EPT points which is the entrance mechanic to the Masters Championship tournaments. Teams begin their ESL Pro Tour campaigns by competing in Challenger tournaments, and if they place highly they earn EPT points. EPT points are of great value to teams as their EPT point standings will decide if they directly qualify to future Masters and Masters Championship tournaments. Placing highly at both Masters Championship and Masters tournaments offer an abundance of EPT points, boosting a teams positioning in the important Road to Katowice or Road to Cologne race. This is commonly known as the ‘EPT race’.

ESL Pro Tour

Qualification 

Master Championships

There are three avenues to qualifying for a Masters Championship. Leading into each Masters Championship the Top 8 teams holding the highest amount of EPT race points will directly qualify for the main event. The remaining eight teams within the Top 16 of the EPT race will be invited to a Play-In Stage. The Play-In Stage is the final hope for elite squads to showcase their abilities and earn their slot at the Masters Championship main event. With a total of 16 teams competing within the Play-In, the current Top 6 ESL World Ranking teams and two ESL National Championship victors combine with the remaining EPT race teams. Eight teams will be eliminated and eight teams will move on to join the original Top 8 EPT race teams at the Masters Championship main event.

Play In

9 - 16 EPT

ESL World ranking
+ Challenger

Final 16

1 - 8 EPT

Masters

There are three avenues to qualifying for a Masters tournament. Taking place twice a year, with a total of 16 slots available, six of these teams will qualify via Challenger tournaments such as DHO, ESL National Championships or ESEA Premier. The four highest ranked teams within the ESL World Ranking will be directly invited, and the final six teams will also be directly invited ESL Partner teams. The framework of Challenger tournaments acts as a vital entry path for teams to earn their opportunity to compete on a world stage for $250,000 and a large share of EPT points, in hopes of boosting their campaign to a Masters Championship.

Total Event Invitation Distribution

ESL Partner Teams6

ESL World Ranking4

QUALIFICATION / EPT CONNECTION6

Standings

What is the difference between the ESL World Ranking and the EPT Race?

The ESL Pro Tour Race measures performance strictly inside the ESL Pro Tour and the CS:GO Majors. The simplified explanation is: “The best 16 teams in EPT and Major competitions of the 12 months before IEM Cologne will qualify for it.”

(Technically it’s not 12 months but from ESL One Cologne one year to ESL One Cologne the next year.)

There is a simple decay, where “old results” are counted at 50% of their value and more recent results are counted at 100%.

The ESL World Ranking measures performance by all teams in all tournaments regardless. Its aim is to accurately describe which lineups are currently the best. The ranking is used for the purposes of seeding tournaments and non-ESL partnered team EPT invitations.

The ESL WR is more sophisticated than the ESL Pro Tour point system and has a much more gradual decay and is primarily player-based (meaning that new lineups can be ranked immediately). For the purposes of seeding in CS:GO, this is optimal. Show FAQs.

Any changes to the ESL World Ranking need to take into account that they have to very accurately reflect how good lineups are expected to be, otherwise it will ruin seeding and could potentially put very strong teams into already strong groups. Show ESL World Ranking

ESL Pro Tour

Point Allocation 

Each tournament within the ESL Pro Tour provides ESL Pro Tour Race Points. The number of points and its allocation will vary based on the amount of participating teams and the total prize pool.

Global Event Allocation

Championship
ESL Pro League
16 Teams
8 Teams
NC high*
NC low*
1ST
1800 points
1300 points
1000 points
800 points
25 points
15 points
2ND
1400 points
1000 points
750 points
550 points
16 points
10 points
3RD-4TH
1100 points
775 points
525 points
350 points
7 points
5 points
5TH-6TH
825 points
575 points
350 points
175 points
7TH-8TH
575 points
400 points
200 points
0 points
9TH-12TH
325 points
250 points
100 points
13TH-16TH
125 points
100 points
0 points
17TH-20TH
60 points
50 points
21ST-24TH
0 points
0 points
Championship
ESL Pro League
16 Teams
8 Teams
1ST
1800 points
1300 points
1000 points
800 points
2ND
1400 points
1000 points
750 points
550 points
3RD-4TH
1100 points
775 points
525 points
350 points
5TH-6TH
825 points
575 points
350 points
175 points
7TH-8TH
575 points
400 points
200 points
0 points
9TH-12TH
325 points
250 points
100 points
13TH-16TH
125 points
100 points
0 points
17TH-20TH
60 points
50 points
21ST-24TH
0 points
0 points
A National Championship (NC) is classed as "high" if it has 4 or more points based on the participating teams. Anything below 4 points is "low".
  • Team in ESL Pro League = 4 points
  • Team in ESEA Premier = 2 points
  • Team in ESEA Advanced = 1 point

Player Transfer

If a player joins a new team, their points will only be counted towards the ESL Pro Tour Race again after they have competed in a Masters or Challenger event under their new organisation.

Until then, the new player’s points will be NO HIGHER THAN the points of the player he/she has replaced in the team.

This is done to prevent tampering with the standings in order to qualify for the Masters Championships (“buying a ranking position”).

intel grand slam

Teams will claim the $1 million prize if they win 4 ESL Pro Tour Masters events inside a span of ten competitions as long as at least 1 of those trophies was won at an EPT Championship level event. Otherwise, teams require 6 tournament victories during a window of ten events to collect the Intel Grand Slam prize.

Due to the current regional separation of the world’s top teams into regional divisions, results from regionally split events with multiple champions do not count towards the Intel Grand Slam.

Events in 2021

We have released our ESL Pro Tour Masters CS:GO calendar for 2021. Please see our tournament schedule below.
Show event calendar

EPT point allocation

Points will count 100% towards the nearest EPT Masters Championship and 50% towards the subsequent edition.
 

Starting with Road to Katowice 2022, previously EPT Masters Championships would count 0% to the the next edition of the same EPT Championship one year later.

CS:GO majors

All CS:GO Majors will count towards the ESL Pro Tour Standings, regardless of the company hosting them. CS:GO Majors are events of great significance and doing well there should help you earn points towards qualifying to EPT Masters Championships.

Masters Championships

The two EPT Masters Championships IEM Cologne in Summer and IEM Katowice in Winter are the largest events in the ESL Pro Tour, serving as the culmination of a year's worth of work for participating teams.

COLOGNE 2021

24 TEAMS | $1,000,000
Road to Cologne
6 - 18 July

Katowice 2022

24 TEAMS | $1,000,000
Road to Katowice
Early 2022