The CS2 release may have happened, but many CS:GO competitions are yet to fully transition into the Counter-Strike 2. However, that is happening gradually, and one of the competitions that will drive it will be played in December.
The upcoming ESL Challenger Atlanta tournament to be held at DreamHack Atlanta will be the first in years to carry a major implication, even though it won’t be the only CS2 LAN in North America.
The competition set to be played between December 15 and 17 will see the winner secure automatic qualification for ESL Pro League season 19, which begins in April 2022. ESL Challenger Atlanta is an eight-team LAN tournament to be held from Dec. 15 to 17, and it will be the first time since 2019 that an offline tournament held in North America determined who qualified for the ESL Pro League.
The last season in that regard was ESL Pro League Season 10, and it featured smaller regional leagues that pushed teams into a global LAN final. Meanwhile, seasons 11 and 12 were postponed due to COVID, and season 13 was the first single global league that was dominated primarily by the permanent partner teams.
In 2019, it was the NA Pro League that determined the teams that qualified for the season 10 finals in Odense, Denmark.
The NA Counter-Strike looked very different from what it is now until the combination of COVID and the launch of VALORANT changed the trajectory of the scene.
The demise of the NA CS was disappointing for many players who stated that that was the sole reason they left for other parts of VALORANT.
Many are hoping that the return of NA LAN qualifiers, the launch of CS2, and the eventual demise of franchised leagues will spark a resurgence.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
