The highly awaited ESL One Cologne has been moved into an online tournament.
The people running ESL Cologne 2020 has decided to transition the event from an in-person tournament, into an online tournament due to the ongoing pandemic. According to them, the decision was concluded as they stated, "after extensive research and understanding of global travel regulations and individual national guidelines".
The tournament will now be divided into 4 separate divisions based on regions. These regions will be; Europe, North America, Oceana, and Asia. The teams competing in these tournaments were based on the regionalized version of the original ESL One Cologne qualification rule set. These tournaments will begin on the 18th of August, until the 30th of August, lasting a total of 12 days.
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According to the official update post, due to many of the world's top teams being separated, the way value of the points that are earned during these events will be slightly altered to past events. The points earned during the regional online tournaments now provide higher valued ESL Pro Tour points. However, the downside to these higher valued points is that these points will not count towards the ESL Pro Tour Masters Championship event.
The teams will compete for a total of $500,000 in prize money, while the other $500,000 will be redistributed equally in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice and the 2021 ESL One Cologne. Each regional tournament will have different amounts of total competitors, as well as a different amount of prize pool money which is distributed by the following: 16 teams and a $325,000 prize pool for the Europe region, 8 teams and a $135,000 prize pool for the North America region, 4 teams and a $20,000 prize pool for the Asia region, and 4 teams and a $20,000 prize pool for the Oceania region.
It is unfortunate that ESL One Cologne has to switch to an online format. However, drastic events ongoing in the world call for drastic measures to be decided upon. All in all, I can appreciate the decisions made by the ESL organizers. They had to adhere to the policies of multiple governments, while also taking the health of the players and viewers into consideration. With all this considered, you have got to appreciate the steps that the ESL organizers are taking. Even with the tournament going online, you should still look forward to watching it from the comfort of your own home.