This weekend will see the NA Challenger League open and closed qualifiers take place on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
This will be the first tournament to take place in the 2022 competitive season meaning the new nine-map pool will be in play as Coastline has been replaced by Theme Park, Border, and Skyscraper.
Thorn and the Attacker Repick mechanic will both not be in play as the games will be played on the High Calibre patch, rather than the Demon Veil expansion.
The tournament rulebook also includes a number of restrictions on Canadian players. However, this is likely an error as it’s been copied from the 2020 season rules and not edited correctly. The 2022 Season update to the Global Rulebook is also not yet publicly available.
At the time of writing, there are 63 rosters that have signed up to the qualifiers. The most notable of these is “Leftovers” which includes the former XSET teammates, Alex "Butterzz" O'Campo and Xavier "Filthy" Garcia, while “08 Lions” includes Coal "Doodle" Phillips and Abdullah "Factor" Rihan who previously played on Luminosity Gaming.
The format will see a single-elimination, best-of-three map tournament start later today with it continuing until the top 16 stage. The top 16 then till be played on Sunday with the top two progressing on to the NACL relegations.
These relegations will take place on March 19th, next Saturday. There is currently no start date to Stage 1 of the Challenger League tournament itself, however, it is likely to be around the same time as the NA League kicks off on March 29th.