The previously canceled ESL Challenger Counter-Strike event that was to be played at DreamHack Anaheim will now be played online in Europe under the name ESL Challenger 48, according to a statement from ESL.
In mid-December, ESL announced the cancelation of DreamHack Anaheim citing COVID-19 concerns. The new ESL Challenger 48 event, which will serve as the replacement, will now be on offline LAN event in Europe. It will still award the same $100,000 prize money, seeding for ESL Pro League Conference Season 16 and ESL Circuit Points. ESL Challenger 48 will still be played on the originally planned dates of Feb. 11-13.
At the time DreamHack Anaheim was canceled, four teams had already won their region’s respective qualifiers for the event. They are Double Poney (Europe), Extra Salt (North America), 9z Team (South America) and ORDER (Oceania). These teams, alongside four more as of yet unannounced invited teams, will still be the participants at the event. According to the statement, ESL will cover travel and accommodation costs for these teams as they seek to find bootcamp accommodations in Europe.
Players have already expressed their disappointment at the change via Twitter.
— Johnny (@JTcsgo) January 7, 2022
As previously mentioned, the winner of ESL Challenger 48 will automatically qualify into the EPL Conference for Season 16. The conference stage is a new addition that can qualify teams into the main EPL event. The first place team will also be awarded $50,000 and 100 EPL Circuit Points.
Following the cancelation of DreamHack Anaheim, the updated DreamHack festivals schedule for 2022 is as follows:
Dallas, Texas, U.S. — June 3-5
DreamHack Summer, Jönköping, Sweden — June 18-21
Valencia, Spain — July 1-3
Melbourne, Australia — Sep. 2-4
Rotterdam, Netherlands — Oct. 14-16
Hyderabad, India — Oct. 29-31
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. — Nov. 18-20
DreamHack Winter, Jönköping, Sweden — Nov. 26–28
Madrid, Spain — Dec. 9–11
Check out the full ESL Pro Tour calendar.
