How it Works 2022/2023 - SC2

2022/2023

How itWorks

esl pro tour

The ESL Pro Tour is a circuit that connects all ESL and DreamHack tournaments.
It has created an open ecosystem that provides opportunities for players all over the world to compete at the biggest tournaments across the SC2 calendar. Throughout the year, players compete and earn ESL Pro Tour points which determine their position within the ESL Pro Tour Race in order to qualify for the EPT Championship at the end of the yearly season which crowns the official World Champion.

EPT Championship

The ESL Pro Tour Championship takes place once a year where the best performing players come together in Katowice, Poland to compete for $500,000 and the title of ‘World Champion’.

The top performing 20 players from the ESL Pro Tour Race are invited into the Group Stages (Ro24) while the next best 16 players are to compete within the Play-In Stage which advances 4 players into the Group Stages.

Play-IN (Ro36)

16Players

4 Player advance

Group Stages (Ro24)

24Players

12 Player advance

Playoffs (Ro12)

12Players

World Champion

Once the Group Stages (Ro24) is complete, players advance to a final tournament bracket in order to determine who will be crowned the next World Champion.

The EPT Levels

ESL OPEN Cups

The ESL Open Cups are a series of weekly online cups. These tournaments are the grassroots of the ESL Pro Tour operating every week to provide all players an opportunity to compete within the ESL Pro Tour structure. Each week there are 3 of these, played on the Europe, America, and Asian servers.

Each year from the qualification deadline for Katowice, ESL Open Cups will not provide EPT.

Weeks a year

Regions

$ 0

Prize money

+ 0

EPT Points

The EPT Masters

In the 2022/2023 season there are two competitive seasons split into Valencia and Atlanta. Each season will have open online qualification which leads into regionalized tournaments to then conclude with the main body of the competition. The regionalized tournaments will work identically to the 2020 and 2021 systems, providing the best players with an invitation to the seasonal finals hosted live at either DreamHack Valencia or DreamHack Atlanta.

Apart from those seasons and the GSL, there will be several non-ESL competitions offering EPT Points to the World Champion crowning tournament at IEM Katowice.

Qualification

Throughout the year, each season will begin with Open Qualifiers which will lead into Closed Qualifiers to fight for spots in the regionalized main event. The first season of the year will have players from 2021-22 invited based on their final result in Katowice and the EPT Standings, and the later seasons will have the top half of each regional event automatically qualify for the next season, while the bottom half are placed into Closed Qualifiers where they will play against players from the open portion.

Regional Divisions

Europe32 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFACTION

North America16 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFACTION

Latin America8 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFCATION

Oceania & Roa8 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFACTION

China8 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFCATION

TAI/HK/MAC/JPN/MN8 Player

Player Distribution

QUALIFIED FOR SEASON FINALS

REQUALIFACTION

GSL & EPT Integration

Continuing from last year, in the 2022/2023 season players competing within the GSL will also be able to compete within the ESL Pro Tour. The best performing 6 players from the GSL will earn qualification to compete at the subsequent DreamHack SC2 Masters competition at DreamHack Valencia and details for how the breakdown in DreamHack Atlanta will come out shortly.

ESL Pro Tour

PRIZE & POINTS

REGIONAL Allocation

DH SC2 MASTERS:EUROPE

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$110,500	6820 Points
1ST	$15,000	1200 Points
2ND	$10,000	825 Points
3RD	$6,000	600 Points
4TH	$4,500	375 Points
5TH-6TH	$3,500	285 Points
7TH-8TH	$3,000	225 Points
9TH-12TH	$2,500	195 Points
13TH-16TH	$2,000	165 Points
17TH-20TH	$1,500	120 Points
21ST-24TH	$1,200	90 Points
25TH-28TH	$900	60 Points
29TH-32ND	$600	30 Points
33TH-40TH	$400	15 Points
41ST-48TH	$200	5 Points

Win in Groupstage	$200

DH SC2 MASTERS:NORTH AMERICA

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$48,800	1815 Points
1ST	$8,000	525 Points
2ND	$5,000	375 Points
3RD	$4,500	255 Points
4TH	$3,500	150 Points
5TH-6TH	$2,500	100 Points
7TH-8TH	$2,000	60 Points
9TH-10TH	$1,500	35 Points
11TH-12TH	$1,100	25 Points
13TH-14TH	$800	15 Points
15TH-16TH	$600	10 Points
17TH-20TH	$400	5 Points
21ST-24TH	$200	0 Points

Win in Groupstage	$150

DH SC2 MASTERS:CHINA

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$21,400	925 Points
1ST	$6,500	500 Points
2ND	$4,500	225 Points
3RD	$3,000	100 Points
4TH	$2,000	40 Points
5TH-6TH	$1,300	20 Points
7TH-8TH	$800	10 Points
9TH-10TH	$400	0 Points
11TH-12TH	$200	0 points

DH SC2 MASTERS:LATIN AMERICA

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$21,400	815 Points
1ST	$6,500	375 Points
2ND	$4,500	225 Points
3RD	$3,000	100 Points
4TH	$2,000	45 Points
5TH-6TH	$1,300	25 Points
7TH-8TH	$800	10 Points
9TH-10TH	$400	0 Points
11TH-12TH	$200	0 Points

DH SC2 MASTERS:TAIWAN

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$17,950	735 Points
1ST	$4,500	345 Points
2ND	$3,500	225 Points
3RD	$2,650	90 Points
4TH	$1,900	35 Points
5TH-6TH	$1,300	15 Points
7TH-8TH	$800	5 Points
9TH-10TH	$400	0 points
11TH-12TH	$200	0 points

DH SC2 MASTERS:OCEANIA

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$17,950	575 Points
1ST	$4,500	255 Points
2ND	$3,500	150 Points
3RD	$2,650	75 Points
4TH	$1,900	35 Points
5TH-6TH	$1,300	20 Points
7TH-8TH	$800	10 Points
9TH-10TH	$400	0 points
11TH-12TH	$200	0 points

Global Allocation

DREAMHACK SC2 MASTERSFESTIVALS

	Prize Money	Points
TOTAL	$100,000	10840 Points
1ST	$15,000	1500 Points
2ND	$10,000	1000 Points
3RD-4TH	$6,500	600 Points
5TH-8TH	$3,600	375 Points
9TH-16TH	$2,000	225 Points
17TH-24TH	$1,250	150 Points
25TH-32ND	$1,000	120 Points
33RD-40TH	$750	90 Points
41ST-48TH	$500	60 Points
49TH-56TH	$300	40 Points
57TH-64TH	$150	20 Points
65TH-80TH	–	0 Points

IEM Katowice 2023

		Prize Money
TOTAL		$500,000
1ST		$150,000
2ND		$71,000
3RD-4TH		$40,000
5TH-8TH		$20,000
9TH-12TH		$10,000
13TH-16TH		$5,000
17TH-20TH		$4,000
21ST-24TH		$3,000
25TH-26TH		$2,000
27TH-28TH		$1,500
29TH-32ND		$1,000
33RD-36TH		$500

Win in Groupstage		$300

ESL Pro Tour

CHAMPIONSHIP DISTRIBUTION

RO24

Direct Invites

From Standings

EPT StandingsEU 4 | NA 2| LA 1 | CN 1

Korea Standing 5

GLOBAL STANDINGS 2*

*HIGHEST POINTS PLAYER WITHOUT A SLOT GLOBALLY

RO36

From Standings

EPT StandingsEU 3 | NA 1 | LA 1 | CN 1 | TW 2 | OCE 1

Korea Standing 7

masters championship

The Masters Championship takes place once per year, with a prize pool of $500,000 in 2021. The Championship will be a week long tournament, as originally designed, 36 players will travel to IEM Katowice 2021. The Masters Championship will take place at IEM Katowice where 36 of the best players compete for the crown of World Champion.

Prize pool: $500,000

RegionAL COMPETITION

Competition is now six regional divisions that compete in three seasons. A season is 5-6 weeks and players collect points to secure their RO24 or RO36 spot per region at IEM Katowice Masters Championship 2021.

Masters Championship

Bigger & Better! The new “Global Playoffs” moves from BlizzCon to Katowice. Formally it was 8 circuit players vs 8 from Korea. Now it’s expected to be about 18 vs 18. The tournament now has 36 of the best players compete for the crown of World Champion.

10 Year Anniversary

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of SC2 and the release of the new ESL Pro Tour system, all tournaments will see a significant prize pool boost totalling an additional $325,000. Happy birthday SC2!

3 YEAR COMMITMENT

ESL & Blizzard have created a partnership that will see the ESL Pro Tour for SC2 run through 2020, 2021, 2022 and into the start of 2023.

pRIZE POOL & POINTS

Both the prize pools and point system have been reworked and rebalanced to a more detailed flatter system.