ESEA have responded to FACEIT’s highly popular FPL and elo system by releasing their own. The main talking point of this was who will the pros choose to play with FACEIT or ESEA? The biggest difference between the two is the server quality with the community saying the pros will go to ESEA because their servers are better. Only time will tell as this gets rolled out.

Here’s what ESEA had to say on their website:

While the modified Elo is not public, we are releasing a brand new system that places you into a rank following a series of placement matches (3 matches for placement). Each rank has three subsections and every Pug you play will have you earn or lose points based on the strength of your opponent. After a series of placement matches, you will be ranked into either A, B, C or D. From there you begin your journey.

In order to be eligible for placement matches or to gain points, you will be required to queue with groups of 4 or less. Queues of 5 or more users will now only play against other groups of 5 and will not be eligible for placement, Elo or any rank points.

Each month, $20,000 per region will be awarded to the top performing players in Rank S based on a point structure of 3 points per Rank S win, 1 point per Rank S loss and 1 point per Pug win.

The key features of Rank S include:

• Client based queue system, team picking and map veto
• Captains chosen based on point standings
• Best server location picked based on players pings
• Prize money paid out within 30 days
• All matches and qualification process protected by ESEA Anti-Cheat
• Active admin and developer support

To kick this off, we’ve invited all members of the North American Pro League, Echo Fox, TSM, Tempo Storm, ex-iBP and other community members. We expect to be fully operational in Europe by early April for all European ESL Pro League players after we’ve ironed out any bugs.

Each month, starting at the end of April, the two highest ranking players on ESEA will earn a spot in the following month’s Rank S group. Each month we’ll evaluate their performance in the Rank S, and determine if they will remain for another month, or continue to improve through the Pug system.

This is only our first step in making ESEA a better experience for everyone, and next on our list will be tackling the kick system as well as adding additional features around what is being released today.