A raft of IEM Rio Major attendees will be taking part with spots for the ESL Pro League Conference on offer.

The next season of ESL's Challenger League kicks off October 25, with teams in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific competing in their respective divisions for a spot in Season 17 of the EPL Conference.

In Europe, 24 teams featuring the likes of Spirit, Sprout and Bad News Eagles will do battle through a double elimination best-of-three bracket, with the grand final being best-of-five. The team who makes the final through the upper bracket will enjoy a 1-0 map advantage.

Spirit will find themselves the favourites to take the European division title as they are comfortably the highest ranked team in attendance, however they have been known to falter in lower-tier online competition, having crashed out of the recent CCT South Europe Series 1 at the hands of Tricked.

9INE, who won the previous iteration of the league mere days ago, are seeded directly into the round-of-16 and will be hoping to continue the rise that victory afforded them in the world rankings, where they now sit at No. 39.

The North American portion of the league features 16 teams split between two round-robin best-of-three groups, with the top four teams from each group progressing to a double-elimination best-of-three playoff bracket. As in Europe, the grand final will be best-of-five, with the upper bracket team having a map advantage.

MIBR are the highest ranked team in attendance in North America, and they will be looking to bounce back after being eliminated in third place in Season 42 after losing to Nouns and ATK. ATK, who eventually bested Nouns 3-1 in the grand final of Season 42, will be hoping to make it two wins in a row.

The Asian-Pacific division is already underway, with favourites like Lynn Vision and Major attendees IHC securing 2-0 wins in their opening games.

The European section will kick off October 25 at 19:00 , with IEM Rio Legends spot holders Sprout taking on UNGENTIUM.
Information on where you can follow the action can be found on the match page.

As for North America, the first matches take place on October 26 at 02:00 , with Snakes Den matching up against Kari and Mythic facing off against Nouns. Those two games will be featured on the ESL B stream and the main ESL stream respectively.

The opening matches are:

Europe

October 25
19:00 Sprout vs UNGENTIUM

October 26
19:00 PALOMA vs Bad News Eagles

North America

October 26
02:00 Mythic vs Nouns
02:00 Snakes Den vs Kari