The EUSL Season 9 Qualification System aims to create a fair and balanced method for determining the 10 teams that will participate in the professional league. The system uses a combination of core retention criteria, automatic qualifications, and a play-in tournament to ensure fairness and competitive balance.
To maintain the core identity of a team while acknowledging roster changes, a team must retain a minimum of 3 players from its previous season lineup to be considered the same team. The players must have played 25% of the teams total periods played to be considered. This core retention criteria will be used to determine automatic qualifications. In the event a previous team of 6 attempts to claim two core-3 spots preference will be given to the core-3 with the most periods played in the previous season.
The following teams will automatically qualify for the professional league:
If fewer than 8 teams from the previous pro league season meet the core retention criteria, the remaining automatic qualification spots will be allocated to the play-in tournament.
The remaining spots in the professional league will be filled through a play-in tournament. The tournament will include the following teams:
The play-in tournament structure will vary based on the number of spots available, with seeding based on the EP from the 4 highest EP players.
To ensure that teams are composed of experienced and skilled players, a Player Value System will be implemented. This system assigns points to players based on their experience and achievements. Teams must have a minimum total Player Value to be eligible for the play-in tournament. Players must have played 15 periods in the relevant season (e.g last season for 10pts, in the season they were on a top 4 team for historical PV).