Because its Opening Cups came to a close not too long ago and with the Major Series' playoffs reaching the final stage, things started to get a little quiet at the Electronic Sports League side of things. Therefore, in addition to the recently announced third Weekend Cup, a set of Winter Cups has been announced yesterday. Because they act as somewhat as the second cup season, they're simply the successors of the Opening Cups, so the 6on6 and 4on4 game modes will be used.


Two registration portals were created for either game mode, and signups for both of them were opened yesterday at 20:30 CET. You have until 23:59 CET on Saturday February 9, 2008 to sign your team up for one or both of the tournaments. The first match week has been planned to start 24 hours after the signup deadline. Information regarding the Winter Cups' structure has not yet been released, as this depends on the number of participants.

You can expect the Winter Cups took take considerably less time to finish than the Opening Cups, though, as plans were announced to maintain a tighter schedule in order to provide a more lively cup. A match week will actually take a week, and no longer; if no result has been entered by then, the fixture will be forfeited or a random result will be forced. You can read the full details on this move as well as a motivation for it on the ESL site.

External links
» ESL's official announcement
» Deeplink to 4on4 Winter Cup signup page
» Deeplink to 6on6 Winter Cup signup page