European Counter-Strike League

Welcome to the home of the European Counter-Strike League or the ECSL in its shortened day-to-day form.

This page is intended to serve as a very short introduction to this league, it is not meant to go into any great amount of depth - its merely to give new visitors a basic outline of what this site is all about, who its run for (and by) and where to go next if you wish to participate either as a team member, a team leader or even join the league administration team!

At its very basic level this league could be compared to a 'real-life' league event such as a Football or a Rugby League - except our event allows players from a novice skill level to a self-proclaimed expert in gaming to participate... and our players dont command stupid salaries for kicking a bit of plastic about a field.

What Is Counter-Strike?

Without a doubt Counter-Strike (or CS) is still the most popular played game on the Internet, having been released in beta versions around the same time as TFC (Team Fortress Classic) back in mid-1999. CS only gained version 1.0 status some 2+ years later, but not before getting huge numbers of players hooked on its massive playability factor - indeed the Counter-Strike development team are still bringing out updates and improvements to the game some 3 years since its release!

A CS match is generally played with 5 or 6 players on a team, each team assumes the guise of either a terrorist or a counter-terrorist team. Each side has the appropriate weapons and skills with which to neutralise the opposition team and/or complete other mission objectives within a short timeframe (usually 4 minutes). This clash of the two heavily armed teams happens within the confines of a 'real-world location' map, which could look anything like a skyscraper to a noisy and convoluted industrial complex.

League Operation

This League runs 3 seasons a year, each season last 10 weeks in length with a couple of 'catch-up' weeks tacked onto the end which allow for final matches and other League administration tasks to be completed. During each week registered clans are expected to play one or two matches against pre-ordained opponents.

The results of these matches are recorded in our match database and the appropriate points are given to each clan, the latest 'state of play' can be seen on the league table, points allotments tend to be tweaked from season to season. Clans do tend to drop-out of the League as the season progresses due to real-life issues and maybe teamwork problems, when this happens the general rule is that any points gained/lost against this dropped team are discounted - although this can/may change from season to season.

Each season can have 100+ teams participating with each team having from 6 to 20+ members - so its usually a safe bet that you are playing in an environment of some 2,000+ players each season! Groups of teams are split into skill based divisions and have to play to the best of their ability to avoid relegation and to gain promotion to a higher division in the next season.

If you have any more questions please visit the ECSL discussion forums where you can post your questions!

Thanks for visiting!

The F2C.NET Admin Team