Important Rules

Be aware of these important rules that apply to playing almost all matches on the ESL.

Screnshots - You must take screenshots showing all results (both halves of a match) and if your game supports it a status/rcon status screenshot. These screenshots must be uploaded to the match page immediately following a match.

Demos/Replays - If your game supports demos/replays you must save and keep them for 14 days. In Counter-Strike & Counter-Strike: Source this means POV demos!

Aequitas - In all Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Source and Call of Duty 4 matches on the ESL you must use Aequitas. We recommend using ESL Wire which has Aequitas built-in in addition to other cool features such as automatic matchmedia uploading.

Ways to play

We offer all players and teams several way to play their favourite games on the ESL.

Ladders

The foundation of online gaming and the ESL are the ladders. Find and challenge teams to earn points in the ladder and try to get the top. See below to find out how to get matches in the ladders.

Cups

We run regular cups in most games, keep checking the ESL UK homepage for announcements.

Leagues

We run leagues every month in most games, see the ESL UK Leagues homepage for details.

Gathers

If you're looking for a mix with some other people then try playing a Gather.

King of the Hill

Grab some friends and play on our King of the Hill servers to kill some time, rack up some frags and earn points in the King of the Hill ladders. The top 5 players every month earn Premium and the winner gets the King of the Hill award. See the Counter-Strike KotH or Counter-Strike: Source KotH pages for more details.

Ladders

There are several ways to find and play matches in ESL Ladders. Remember you must and be accepted by an admin before you can play in a ladder.

Challenge

The most straight forward way is find a player or team on the page and them.

Matchmaker

If you know when you want to play then you go to the page and create an open matchmaker challenge for specific date and time, or accept one another player or team has made.

AutoChallenger

If you want to play matches at the same time every week then you set AutoChallenger times to automatically create matches every week against other players and teams. Set AutoChallenger times for yourself by going to and .

To set AutoChallenger times for your team go to then then .

InstantChallenger

If you're ready and waiting to play now, then you can use the Instant Challenger to find other players or teams who are also searching.