ESEA

[e][h]E-Sports Entertainment Association

Basic Information

Full name:

E-Sports Entertainment Association

Links

History

Created:

2003

Closed:

2019-07-01

ESEA (E-Sports Entertainment Association) is an e-sports organisation located and hosted in North America. It currently hosts a platform for competitive Counter Strike: Global Offensive and in the past hosted both 6s tournaments in Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Source tournaments.

Format

The ESEA regular season consisted of 16 regular season matches, played over 8 maps with one map per week. The top teams from each division participated in double-elimination playoffs to compete for the division's prize pool. Each game in the playoff bracket in the top division was played as a best-of-3-match, while playoff games in the other divisions are single-game. Between seasons, teams were promoted or demoted to another division based on their performance during the season.

Matches were played on a single map, with two halves of 30 minutes. Depending on the game type, the win conditions differ:

• On 5CP maps, the first half was played until the time limit ran out or one team won 3 rounds; the second half and the match ended once the time limit ran out or one team won 5 rounds;
• On King of the Hill maps, the first half was played until the time limit ran out or one team won 3 rounds; the second half and the match ended once the time limit ran out or one team won 4 rounds;
• On Attack/Defend maps, each half consisted of a stopwatch round. The teams alternated between attacking and defending, such as if team A defended first, team B would be the first to defend in the next round. Each team could have scored one point in a half. The game ended once one of the teams reached 2 points.
• In Capture the Flag, the times of each half were only 20 minutes long and had no capture limit. The team with the highest amount of captures by the end of the second half won the round.

Divisions

Within the TF2 league, there were up to four divisions:

• ESEA-I (Invite)
• ESEA-M (Main) (only during Season 15)
• ESEA-IM (Intermediate)
• ESEA-O (Open)

The Invite division hosted the highest level of 6v6 competition in North America. Players from other continents were allowed to participate in any of the divisions. Up until Season 18, each season's top teams from the Invite division participated in a LAN event to compete for the Invite prize pool.

Hall of Fame

ESEA Invite

Season	Winner
ESEA-I Season 3	Blight
ESEA-I Season 4	Loaded
ESEA-I Season 5	Complexity
ESEA-I Season 6	Blight-own
ESEA-I Season 7	eMazing Gaming
ESEA-I Season 8	CheckSix Gaming (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 9	eMazing Gaming / Dashner
ESEA-I Season 10	Classic Mixup
ESEA-I Season 11	Leviathan Gaming
ESEA-I Season 12	Classic Mixup (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 13	High Rollers Gaming
ESEA-I Season 14	High Rollers Gaming
ESEA-I Season 15	Classic Mixup
ESEA-I Season 16	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 17	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 18	froyotech (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 19	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 20	Ascent
ESEA-I Season 21	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 22	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 23	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 24	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 25	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 26	froyotech (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 27	froyotech (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 28	froyotech (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 29	froyotech
ESEA-I Season 30	froyotech (undefeated)
ESEA-I Season 31	froyotech

ESEA Intermediate

Season	Winner
Season 7	Harmonic (invite is hard)
Season 8	iDEMISE TF2
Season 9	High Rollers Gaming
Season 10	The Dinosaurs (Pinball Wizards)
Season 11	The Mad Men (No Need for Names)
Season 12	SteveCGames (Apocalypse Gaming)
Season 13	The Mad Men
Season 14	Chill to Good Ratio
Season 15	Tonight's Entertainment
Season 16	Meat Market
Season 17	Cisco Adlers Balls
Season 18	cafe monster
Season 19	Getawhale Fanclub
Season 20	Not Fast Food
Season 21	eL cLaSslcO
Season 22	dead babies mad gunz
Season 23	running without scizors
Season 24	running without scizors
Season 25	†
Season 26	†
Season 27	mr_popo_rocks
Season 28	OMNI5 ESports
Season 29	Frankensteins Roster
Season 30	Theory of Knowledge
Season 31	Methodic

† ESEA Intermediate was not run during ESEA seasons 25 and 26.

ESEA Open

Season	Winner
Season 2	Loaded!
Season 3	Harmonic
Season 4	Tool Academy Grads
Season 5	Don't Trip
Season 6	Nexzil Gaming
Season 7	TEAM EXPLOSION
Season 8	Avoided
Season 9	Team Bad v2
Season 10	Team iT
Season 11	Down to Pound
Season 12	Disposable Heroes
Season 13	The Crunchy Bunch
Season 14	The Italian Stallions
Season 15	Budsquad
Season 16	Arizona Iced Out Boys
Season 17	Mad Luxurious
Season 18	Muffin Men
Season 19	6cuties
Season 20	Ed Head
Season 21	Wood Pig Black
Season 22	stewy business
Season 23	1eL cLaSsIcO
Season 24	eL cLaSsIcO
Season 25	mr_popo_rocks
Season 26	KRIT Esports
Season 27	The Midnight Society
Season 28	HLPugs tf
Season 29	MrPoPos Newbie Mix

ESEA Main

Season	Winner
Season 15	Rinkuing With Rinku

Fees and Prices

To participate in ESEA, players were required to pay a league fee and subscribe to ESEA Premium. The league fees were as follows:

• Invite: $39.95 USD
• Intermediate: $14.95 USD
• Open: No longer requires a fee for participation, only needs ESEA Premium.

The cost of Premium varies depending on the length of the subscription and the tier purchased.

External Links

• Official ESEA website
• ESEA TF2 rules
• A Beginner's Guide to ESEA by tetromino