Astralis risks missing IEM Katowice 2023 due to ESL rating recalculation

According to the portal Dust2, the Danish team risks missing IEM Katowice 2023 due to the recalculation of the ESL rating. Tournament operator ESL reportedly retroactively changed the regional weights of some tournaments last night, resulting in a reallocation of the EPT to some teams. In particular, changes in scoring have affected the Evil Geniuses, Astralis and paiN Gaming teams.

The organizers have increased the impact of the Cash Cup Series championships that were played in North America, thereby changing the approach to scoring points for their rankings. As a result, the new scoring system raised the paiN Gaming and Evil Geniuses teams in the rankings, which overtook Astralis and got excellent chances to go to IEM Katowice 2023.

It is noteworthy that earlier ESL did not pay attention to the Cash Cup series, as it qualified the championships as a "springboard" for young players and small teams. However, several tournaments have been played in North America over the past month, two of which ended in victory for Complexity Gaming.

Probably, due to the abundance of large teams at such championships, the organizers increased the proportion of events in order to eventually redistribute the number of points awarded. At the time of publication of the material, the ESL tournament operator did not comment on the information that appeared.

IEM Katowice 2023 will take place from January 31 to February 12 in Katowice at the Spodek Arena. As part of the championship, 24 teams from the CIS, Europe, North and Latin America, Asia and Oceania will compete for a total prize pool of $1,000,000, as well as a ticket to IEM Cologne 2023 for the winner.

Currently, the names of three participants in the group stage of the championship are known - FaZe Clan (winner of IEM Cologne 2022), Vitality (winner of ESL Pro League Season 16) and Outsiders (winner of IEM Rio Major 2022). In addition, the teams fnatic (winner of Elisa Masters Espoo 2022) and Permitta Esports (winner of Mistrzostwa Polski) will definitely perform at the Play-In stage.

The remaining participants will be determined based on their position in the ESL Top Teams rankings as of December 19th.