Melany M. April 27, 2019
Tournament organizer ESL has updated the relegation system for its ESL Pro League in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive across all competing regions.
The ESL Pro League recently changed its format to include more teams in Europe, the Americas, and in the Asia-Pacific region. Sixteen teams are taking part in the group stage for each region, with the top squads moving directly to the next stage of the event while the bottom sides take part in a relegation stage.
Each region has its own relegation system.
In Europe, the fourth-place teams in the group stage move to the pre-relegation round. The teams compete there in a double elimination bracket featuring best-of-three matches.
The team finishing that bracket in fourth is relegated automatically to a lower division, while the first-place team keeps its spot in the Pro League. The second and third teams must face two squads from the MDL in the relegation round. The winners of those series move to the Pro League, while the losers drop to the MDL.
In the Americas, the three fourth-place teams and the MDL runner-up compete in the pre-relegation round. The winner keeps its position in the Pro League, while the other three teams will compete in the online relegation round against MDL’s third-place team. Only one team moves on from this stage of play to the Pro League.
The fourth-place team from Latin America will face the LA League champion, and this winner also gets a place in the Americas Pro League.
In the Asia-Pacific region, two teams from the Australia Pro League groups play against two teams from qualifiers, with the two winners moving up from there. In China’s group, the last-place team faces a winner from qualifiers for the last remaining spot in the top league.
The last-place team from the league’s remaining group then goes against two qualifying teams from Southeast Asia and one winning team from the Indian Premiership. Only one of those four teams qualifies into the top Asia-Pacific league.