The RaidCall ESL Major Series One returns with its third season! Starting September 3rd, the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams in Europe will once again give all they have in the fight for our prestigeous championship title and $39,000 in prize money. The entire Fall 2013 season will be broadcasted by ESL TV, so lots of extremely entertaining matches await us!

As always, aspiring newcomers have the chance to qualify for the EMS by playing in the A-Series. Do you think that you have what it takes to compete with the very best? Then sign up, pick the match dates that suit you the best and start playing! However, don't get your hopes up too high, as there are some highly skilled teams fighting their way through the A-Series.

» A-Series: Your road to the EMS!

The field of participants in the cups will consist of the highest-ranked teams in the A-Series, the latest Go4CS:GO Winner as well as our Core Teams, namely the 12 most successful teams of the previous Summer 2013 season and national ESL Pro Series champions.

Core Teams

VeryGames Virtus.pro Fnatic Ninjas in Pyjamas

Team LDLC.com Copenhagen Wolves Western Wolves ESC ICY BOX

Natus Vincere n!faculty Five Crowns infectedNation + ESL Pro Series champions

Changes to the tournament format

Our tournament format mostly stays the same. Teams collect points throughout four cups, striving to become one of the 16 teams in the group stage, 8 of which qualify for the LAN finals. We have made some minor adjustments, though: The cup stage stays the same, but the groups will from now on be using a double-elimination bracket without the final matches, commonly referred to as 'GSL format'. Each group is split over two days: The first two matches and the winner-vs-winner match is scheduled for the first day, the loser-vs-loser match and the deciding fifth match are to be played on the second day.

We also changed the format of the live event finals: On the first day, we start off with two groups with four teams each, also using the convenient double-elimination format. Two teams per group then advance to a single-elimination bracket to be played out on the second day. Therefore, each participant is now guaranteed to face more than one opponent on LAN – and having more different match-ups will make our tournament progress less predictable, too.

Schedule

Cup #1: 03.09. – 04.09.
Cup #2: 10.09. – 11.09.
Cup #3: 17.09. – 18.09.
Cup #4: 24.09. – 25.09.
Group A: 01.10. – 02.10.
Group B: 07.10. – 08.10.
Group C: 15.10. – 16.10.
Group D: 22.10. – 23.10.

The date and location of the finals will be announced at a later date. Stay tuned!