ESEA S27 MDL Global Challenge and associated events to use Dust2

ESEA have jumped on board with EPL to field Dust2 in Leicester.

Global Challenge will see Dust 2 played in place of Cobblestone

ESEA's upcoming Global Challenge LAN will see Dust2 take the place of Cobblestone in the competitive map rotation, much to the discontent of some attendees. Some professional players have already expressed frustration at ESL following their decision to use Dust2 at IEM Sydney and EPL Season 7 Finals on short notice, but now the MDL upcomers will see the same treatment.

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MDL Global Challenge Season 27 is set to begin in the second week of May, giving EPL Relegation and MDL playoff teams a mere week and a half of practice on the new map before heading to Leicester. Teams playing in ESL's Pro League Relegation matches as well as the MDL Season 27 Finals (which determine another Pro League spot) will also be subjected to the map swap.

Dust2.us reached out to Torqued's Joshua "steel" Nissan and eUnited coach Jared "osorandom" Hartman for their thoughts on the change, with osorandom expressing frustration at the short notice from ESEA:

As bsl stated, there is no right time, but forcing people to adjust to it now feels awkward and gives players a bad taste as you’re leaving people with little to no time to practice the map. We’re going into an Intel Grand Slam event with teams having less than two weeks of practice on the map. We’re talking a potential to get one step closer to a MILLION dollars and we’re saying, "Sorry guys there is no right time." Logically it feels flawed. MDL announced Monday (4/23) at 6 PDT that they decided to use Dust2 to follow other tournament organizers to keep things fair for all teams. The problem I personally have with this is other leagues and qualifiers (StarSeries, ECS, EPL) are still continuing to use Cobble for their regular season (4/26 for EPL, 5/12 for ECS), while using Dust2 for LAN Finals which are more than a month away for some. This gives us thirteen days between when the announcement hit and when we leave for LAN, along with the map never being tested in a competitive environment before. This feels like a really bad choice to introduce it now. I understand that they want to try to make things fair for other teams as other tournament organizers may be using Dust2, but it’s the old adage of the blind leading the blind here. If Valve makes another bad choice with how weapons function, will TOs just embrace it even if it iss not the right choice? Obviously a step needed to happen in order to get the map to the right place, but this isn't it in my opinion.

Similar sentiments were expressed by steel as to the short notice of the change, although he prefers the map to Cobblestone overall:

Dust2 with its gameplay flaws still plays better than Cobblestone. Ideally the change should have happened before each league season kicked off so that teams could get proper practice on the map instead of dropping the news so soon before major tournaments at the tail end of said league seasons. Having said that, I'd still be excited about changes to middle as that's the biggest issue with the map from a competitive standpoint, but who am I kidding — that's not getting fixed. I'm just counting my blessings that one day I'll wake up to -mirage +Tuscan. Until then, see you in the pit.

Torqued, Swole Patrol, and eUnited are set to face off against teams from Europe, Australia, and Brazil for a $50,000 prize pool in Leicester.

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Swole Patrol and eUnited will also play for a spot in EPL just before the start of Global Challenge, with the winner claiming a spot in EPL. The loser will join Torqued in taking on the 10th and 11th place teams from EPL Season 7 for the two final slots in EPL Season 8.