The eSports Championship Series is heading into season two this fall! The ECS league, founded by FACEIT and supported by Twitch, consists of 10 teams for North America and 10 teams for Europe that will compete starting October 7, 2016. The finals are scheduled for the weekend of December 8, 2016.
The ECS is also hosting open qualifiers for teams interested in joining the league! Open qualifiers for both regions run from August 5-27. Winners from those qualifiers in each region will join four invited teams in an ECS developmental league. The two top teams from that will go up against last season’s bottom two teams in promotion matches. The two winners from each region’s promotion match will join the other eight teams to form the ten team leagues for Season Two.
Here are the links if your team is interested in trying out for the open qualifier:
NA Open qualifiers:
NA Open Qualifier #1
NA Open Qualifier #2
NA Open Qualifier #3
NA Open Qualifier #4
EU Open qualifiers:
EU Open Qualifier #1
EU Open Qualifier #2
EU Open Qualifier #3
EU Open Qualifier #4
“The open qualifiers will provide new teams the opportunity to showcase their talent to the world and join our top CS:GO eSports League,” said Michele Attisani, CBO of FACEIT. “It’s our goal to provide new teams a chance to be recognized in the community and become stars, while providing current ECS teams a fresh pool of talent to test their skills against.”
The ECS is providing $1.75M for Season Two that will go toward the league’s prize pool and supportive funds for the players. This includes helping organizations provide better salaries, facilities and equipment while helping grow the ECS.
“The eSports Championship Series set out to provide players a league that offers a structured, stable framework, similar to mainstream sports,” said Niccolo Maisto, CEO of FACEIT. “The current $1.75M dedicated to Season Two of the ECS is only the starting point for our ECS initiative. As the league grows, so will the benefits to players and organizations within the league.”
Here is the full schedule for Season Two:
Open Qualifiers
Open Qualifier 1 – August 6-7
Open Qualifier 2 – August 13-14
Open Qualifier 3 – August 20-21
Open Qualifier 4 – August 27-28
Development league
Round 1 – September 9-11
Round 2 – September 13-15
Round 3 – September 16-18
Round 4 – September 20-22
Round 5 – September 23-25
Playoffs – September 26-27
Regular Season
Round 1 – October 7-9
Round 2 – October 11-13
Round 3 – October 14-16
Round 4 – November 1-3
Round 5 – November 4-6
Round 6 – November 8-10
Round 7 – November 11-13
Finals – December 8-11
Jonny eSports is the co-host of the Outplay Podcast that airs live on Twitch.tv/aybtv on Wednesdays at 7:30pm, as well as the host of the reSports Radio Show (Sundays at 4pm on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg) and Director of Into The League. He will buy you an AWP and use a P90 because he’s a team player. His opinions are his own.
