2025 is set to be a year absolutely full of Counter-Strike action, and that calendar has just gotten even more jam-packed as ESL have announced details for the ESL Pro Tour 2025.
The announcement comes with some big news, such as the complete removal of BO1s from their tournament formats, as well as more details on the locations of some of their seven tournaments across 2025.
Let's take a look at the full breakdown of the ESL Pro Tour 2025 and the full ESL CS tournament calendar for next year.
First off, let's actually take a look at the total list of tournaments that will take place during the 2025 ESL CS2 tournament calendar.
As always, the year will begin with IEM Katowice, and IEM Cologne will return later on in the year for another one of Counter-Strike's landmark events.
ESL Pro League will also be ticking around, however, those tournaments will run with a revised format and will also seemingly be moving away from the Malta location they have called home for the past few seasons.
Finally, there are three more IEM events, one in Dallas, one in Chengdu, and a third event with the location yet to be revealed.
As always, IEM Katowice 2025 will conclude in Katowice's Spodek Arena for a three-day playoff weekend. As for IEM Cologne 2025, once again it will culminate in the iconic LANXESS Arena.
Before that, there will be two preliminary stages. The first stage will be made up of 16 teams decided by the Valve Regional Standings, eight of which will then advance to stage two after a single double-elimination bracket.
Stage two will see eight higher ranked teams from the Valve Regional Standings enter the fray, and the 16 teams in stage two will then be split into two double-elimination brackets.
Unlike previous years, every match played within these opening two stages will be best-of-threes, a change fans will appreciate after complaining about BO1s since the release of CS2.
The playoff stage will feature the top six teams from stage two with the quarter-finals and semi-finals all being best-of-three. The grand final will be best-of-five.
The five remaining events fall under the bracket of the ESL Pro Tours Masters. While most of these events are similar in terms of how the teams will qualify, there are some notable differences.
IEM Spring 2025 and IEM Chengdu 2025 will see all teams invited via the Valve Regional Standings. Ten of these teams will come from the Global standings, two from Europe, two from the Americas, and two from Asia.
However, IEM Dallas 2025 will see a different process used for the teams attending the event. For Dallas, only eight teams will be invited via the Valve Regional Standings.
The other eight teams will come from open and closed qualifiers, with two slots each being given to each of the four major regions.
ESL Pro League will see it's format changed in 2025. The amount of teams will be reduced to 24 from 32, and the format will become one that similar to the current Major format, although it will use BO3s instead of BO1s.
This means that the tournaments will have two 16 team Swiss stages before the final eight teams battle it out in the playoffs. The grand final, as with all other events on the ESL Pro Tour 2025, will be a BO5.
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