General rules:
- Any team marked dead (due to forfeiting at least three matches during the regular season, , having one or less paid players) will be removed at the end of the Season.
ESL Challenger League:
- Move ups and move downs to the ESL Challenger League division will be done through a relegation tournament the format of which will be announced before each season has begun.
Move downs in Intermediate, Main and Advanced:
- For the current season, in EU/NA Intermediate, Main and NA Advanced, teams with less than 4 wins will be moved down at the end of the season to the division directly below, ie Advanced will demote to Main, Main to Intermediate, and Intermediate to Open.
- In the European Advanced division, teams with fewer than 6 wins will be relegated as we aim to reduce the number of teams in the division to retain its competitive standard
European & North American Move ups:
- Teams will be moved up based on the total number of teams registered in the division:
Open division:
- Between 17-31 teams
- 1st-4th to Intermediate
- Between 32-63 teams
- 1st to Main
- 2nd-8th to Intermediate
- Between 64-127 teams
- 1st-2nd to Main
- 3rd-16th to Intermediate
- Between 128-255 teams
- 1st-4th to Main
- 5th-32nd to Intermediate
- Between 256-511 teams
- 1st to Advanced
- 2nd-8th to Main
- 9th-64th to Intermediate
- Between 512-1023 teams
- 1st to Advanced
- 2nd-16th to Main
- 17th-128th to Intermediate
Intermediate division:
- Between 32-63 teams
- 1st-8th to Main
- Between 64-127 teams
- 1st to Advanced
- 2nd-16th to Main
- Between 128-255 teams
- 1st to Advanced
- 2nd-32nd to Main
- Between 256-511 teams
- 1st to Advanced
- 2nd-64th to Main
- Between 512-1023 teams
- 1st-2nd to Advanced
- 3rd-128 to Main
Main division:
- Between 32-63 teams
- 1st-4th to Advanced
- Between 64-127 teams
- 1st-8th to Advanced
- Between 128-255 teams
- 1st-16th to Advanced
- Between 256-511 teams
- 1st-32nd to Advanced
Other regions:
In all regions where there is only a single Open division then the top teams will not move up to any division. We will try to add higher divisions in all regions which we are confident can support two separate divisions.