ESL has announced the 2024 ESL Pro Tour program, confirming all of the important Counter-Strike tournament dates for the upcoming year. While nothing is confirmed, it seems certain that all of the tournaments on the upcoming slate will be competed in Counter-Strike 2 rather than CS:GO.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the details of all the ESL events coming to Counter-Strike in 2024!

Credit: ESL

ESL Pro Tour Masters and Championships

The headline news is the confirmation of two ESL Pro Tour Championships, as well as five Masters events. The dates for these events are as follows:

IEM Katowice 2024: January 31st – February 11th
IEM China 2024: April 8th – April 14th
ESL Pro League Season 19: April 23rd – May 12th
IEM Dallas 2024: May 27th – June 2nd
IEM Cologne 2024: August 7th – August 18th
ESL Pro League Season 20: September 3rd – September 22nd
IEM Fall 2024: October 7th – October 13th

It’s an exciting slate that’s a great preview into what professional CS2 has in store for fans. There’s tons of information to unpack here, so let’s get into it. IEM returns to China for the first time since 2019’s IEM Beijing. It was supposed to make its return back in 2022, but was canceled due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns. While no specific city has been confirmed yet, it’s presumed this will be announced in due course.

Credit: ESL

ESL Pro League Seasons 19 and 20 see one massive change in format. In upcoming iterations, EPL will be just three weeks long, as opposed to the five it currently occupies. The number of teams will remain the same, with two Groups being played simultaneously rather than one. All in all, this just makes ESL Pro League much less taxing on the players, and is a welcome change.

Then, there’s IEM Fall 2024. While no location has been confirmed yet, it’s pretty safe to assume this will be either IEM Sydney or IEM Rio. Otherwise, we could be looking at a totally new location for an IEM event.

The two Championship events, IEM Katowice 2024 and IEM Cologne 2024, have tickets on sale from September 26th and 28th respectively, with the Spodek and the Cathedral of Counter-Strike making their huge returns for CS2.

ESL Challenger Events

The announcement also included details about all of the ESL Challenger events coming to fans in 2024. While they may not garner the same hype as an IEM Cologne or a Katowice, don’t be fooled – these events put some high-quality Counter-Strike on display.

Credit: ESL

The announced dates for the four main ESL Challenger tournaments in 2024 are:

ESL Challenger #56: April 26th – April 28th
ESL Challenger #57: June 14th – June 16th
ESL Challenger Atlanta: October 4th – October 6th
ESL Challenger #59: November 22nd – November 24th

Locations for ESL Challenger #56, #57, and #59 are yet to be announced. On top of these events, there are also the online ESL Challenger Leagues, which run worldwide over several months. For 2024, these are:

ESL Challenger League Season 47: February – June
ESL Challenger League Season 48: July – November

With these options available, you’re never going to be left short of intense competitive Counter-Strike action.