Qualification

In each discipline, 24 participants will be determined to enter the main group stage. There are two ways to qualify for the Extreme Masters by ESL, depending on your country of origin. Countries with an active ESL Pro Series will determine their participants via the ranking of the last finished season.

Countries without an active ESL Pro Series will get so called National Qualifiers. All national teams can apply for a place in that tournament, further information concering this will be released soon. Depending on the country's place in the Extreme Masters Country Ranking a certain amount of teams or players will move on to the international stage.

Teams that qualified nationally, can enter the Extreme Masters in three different tournament phases, depending on their national rank and their country's rank. The first possibility is a direct entry into the main round. If a team does not qualify directly, it has to go through a two stage international qualifier. 24 teams and players have to play in the first round, another 12 participants are seeded into round 2 of this international qualifier.

In the end, 12 participants succeed from the international qualifier, joining the other 12 for the final lineup of 24 participants in the Extreme Masters main round.



Kick-off Event

In the ESL Intel Arena at Games Convention 2006 in Leipzig, Germany, the Extreme Masters will be officially launched. To celebrate this new spectacular tournament, three of the world's best Counter-Strike teams will come to Germany, in order to determine the first team that qualifies for the Extreme Masters via qualifier. The participants:

• fnatic
  
• SK Gaming
  
• Ninjas in Pyjamas

One of these teams will get a slot for the main round of Extreme Masters by ESL. This mini tournament will take place at the ESL Intel Arena (Hall 3, Booth A40) on Thursday, 24th of August from 14h to 18h CET. It is part of the Swedish national qualification. Details about the other National Qualifiers will follow after Games Convention.

Extreme Masters by ESL - Country Ranking

To guarantee the best possible lineup of participants in each discipline, a group of experts devised a country ranking, that determines how many slots for which round a country gets. The following table also gives information about which countries send their ESL Pro Series teams into the Extreme Masters.

Warcraft 3 Country Ranking:

Rank	Country	Qualifier	Main Round	Slots QR2	Slots QR1
1-2	Sweden	National	2	2	1
1-2	Germany	EPS	2	2	1
3-4	Bulgaria	National	2	1	1
3-4	Russia	National	2	1	1
5-8	Czech Rep	National	1	1	1
5-8	Denmark	National	1	1	1
5-8	France	National	1	1	1
5-8	Netherlands	National	1	1	1
9-10	Alpen	EPS	12	1	1
9-10	Ukraine	National		1	1
11-24	Belarus	National		12	1
11-24	Belgium	National			1
11-24	Croatia	National			1
11-24	Finland	National			1
11-24	Greece	National			1
11-24	Italy	EPS			1
11-24	Lithuania	National			1
11-24	Norway	National			1
11-24	Poland	National			1
11-24	Romania	National			1
11-24	Slovakia	National			1
11-24	Spain	National			1
11-24	Turkey	National			1
11-24	UK	National			1
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Counter-Strike Country Ranking:

There is one exception in the Country Ranking of Counter-Strike. Although Italy is only ranked 11-24, the country gets one extra direct slot for the winner of the national ESL Pro Series.

Rank	Country	Qualifier	Main Round	Slots QR2	Slots QR1
1-2	Sweden	National	2	2	1
1-2	Germany	EPS	2	2	1
3	Norway	National	2	1	1
4-8	Alpen	EPS	1	1	1
4-8	Denmark	National	1	1	1
4-8	Finland	National	1	1	1
4-8	France	National	1	1	1
4-8	UK	National	1	1	1
9-10	Russia	National		1	1
9-10	Spain	National		1	1
11-24	Belgium	National		12	1
11-24	Bulgaria	National			1
11-24	Czech Rep	National			1
11-24	Estonia	National			1
11-24	Greece	EPS			1
11-24	Hungary	National			1
11-24	Italy	EPS	1		1
11-24	Latvia	National	12		1
11-24	Lithuania	National			1
11-24	Netherlands	National			1
11-24	Poland	National			1
11-24	Portugal	National			1
11-24	Romania	National			1
11-24	Turkey	National			1
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