The new league season of ESEA has been officially announced over the weekend. As is now the tradition, there is included an Open United Kingdom division, so if you are a UK team, you can compete against hundreds of other UK teams and play for a chance to move up divisions to the Intermediate Division. This season sees a bump in prize pools too and an additional division given to Turkey.
Last season saw 157 UK teams participate in the UK Open Division and 49 UK teams have already signed up. If you are looking for a league to play in the coming weeks after LAN has concluded, this would be the best place to go at current time. It was fm-eSports who simply reigned supreme last season boasting an impressive 16:0 Win/Loss rate in the Open division, and they are set to face either The Goose House or nerdRage UK in their next match in the bracket.
This is what ESEA announced on their website over the weekend:
We are pleased to announce ESEA League Season 25, which will feature increased divisions for certain regions as well as a number of improvements based on user and team feedback from Season 24.
Registration for NEW teams for Season 25 is now open and will remain so until Monday, May 22nd, 2017 at 11:59pm CDT. Once registration closes, there will be a few days for teams to get acquainted with the system and to schedule their first matches, which will begin Sunday, May 28th, 2017.
Teams currently registered for season 24 (Open – Premier) will be moved to season 25 once season 24 officially ends Monday, May 1st. Rosters will also be locked until this date and move ups will be done shortly after.
Key Changes From Season 24 to Season 25:
- Mountain Dew sponsored League and a to be announced LAN event
- Increased prize pot from $140k+ to $150k+
- Increased number of League servers on new hardware to ease scheduling availability
- Introduction of the Turkey Open division
Features of ESEA League include:
- Two matches per week for all divisions
- Recruitment section to find teams and players
- League matches broadcast up to 5 nights a week on ESEA TV
- Complete web match scheduling
- SMS scheduling alerts
- All matches played on our ESEA servers across 26 global locations
- Coaching system for all regions and all divisions
- Protection from our industry leading anti-cheat / config locking Client
- Helpful team of handpicked paid league Admins who are active in each community
- Complete box scores and stats for every match
- SpecTV replay downloads for every match within 5 minutes of matches finishing
- Automatic live SpecTV for every match (unlimited number of spectators)
- Automatic POV replay recording
- User prediction system for every match
- You build your permanent league record
As a reminder, last December we implemented VAT collections on all subscriptions. Although this was prior to the start of season 24, we decided that due to the short notice ESEA would continue to pay VAT for all season 24 participants. Starting this season, we will begin collecting VAT for all league fees paid from VAT-eligible regions.
A full prize pot breakdown, as well as the map rotations will be announced within the coming weeks so be sure and check back often. Further details about the Mountain Dew League, end of season LAN event, and the Turkish region will be announced in the near future.
With the current league season underway, it should be noted that the eight teams participating in the $50,000 Global Challenge will take place here in Leicester, United Kingdom over the weekend of May 13th – 14th. These are the following teams that will be competing at that event:
Dark Sided (Australian Premier #1)
paiN (Brazilian Open #1)
BIG (EU Premier)
GODSENT (EU Premier)
PENTA eSports (EU Premier #3)
Splyce (NA Premier #1)
Enigma6 (NA Premier #2)
Bee’s Money Crew (NA Premier #3)
We will try to cover as much of ESEA Season 25 as possible over the coming weeks, but remember, the signups for this new season close on Monday May 22nd, with the new season beginning on Sunday May 28th.
Make sure you keep yourselves posted to UKCSGOÂ as we continue to cover the top tier of UK Counter-Strike. You can follow us on Twitter and like our page on Facebook for further updates so you never miss a beat in the UK Scene.
