With a growing community, an ever-evolving game, and more competition than ever, the Rainbow Six Pro League is set to have its most successful year to date. This year will also bring the most amount of changes the Pro League scene has ever seen, with updates to both the Pro League and match formats. The changes, which were debuted at the Season 7 Finals in Atlantic City on the , will take effect on June 11th when the Pro League kicks off it’s 8th Season. Let’s take a deeper look at all of the changes coming this season.
Pro League Format
Previously, the Pro League structure was set up under a GSL format, with a standard four team double-elimination bracket group phase into playoffs. However now that the Rainbow Six esports scene has grown tremendously and our players, fans, and structure have matured, we are confident that this is the perfect time to introduce a league based system with a transition to a double round-robin format.
Six Month Season
Pro League will now move to a six month period, spread out across 14 play days where each team will play every other team twice. Due to the frequency of our updates (every three months), the six months Pro League season will be broken up by a break in the middle, where we’ll have a Major event and the release of a DLC. Therefore, teams will play 7 matches on one DLC during the first half of the season, and 7 matches on the following DLC during the second half. Each play day will be broken down into four best of 1 matches, allowing every team to play every week.
End of Season
We’ve also made some changes to the end of the season. Just like in previous seasons, the top two teams from each region will qualify for the end of season LAN finals. However, we’ve changed how the Challenger League relegations will work. Now, the bottom placed Pro League team will be relegated to the Challenger League replaced by the first place Challenger League team. The team who finishes seventh in the Pro League will continue to play a relegation match against the second place Challenger League team. It’s important to note that the relegation matches will be a best of five. The goal of this change is to encourage up and coming Rainbow Six teams, as well as increase the overall skill level in both Challenger and Pro League.
Match Format
Next up, we’ll discuss the upcoming changes to the match format, or more specifically, how the matches will be played.
Operators’ Pick & Ban
The first major change to match format is the pick and ban system, announced at this year’s Six Invitational. Pick and ban of operators will not only be a part of Pro League, but will be a part of all competitive Rainbow Six esports event, from national leagues to the majors. The way it works is simple: at the beginning of each map, both teams will ban one attacker and one defender each. As discussed on the esports panel, this will bring a whole new level of strategy and mind games to professional play, while giving players full control of the meta.
Bombsite Rotation
There have also been changes to the bombsite rotation. From now on, after a team successfully defends a bombsite, they will not be able to defend that bombsite for another two defensive rounds.
Map Pool
The bombsite change will obviously affect our map pool rotation. Starting with Season 8, the map pool will be reduced to 7 maps: Bank, Clubhouse (reworked), Villa (introduced with Operation Para Bellum), Coastline, Border, Consulate, and Oregon. Every week will have a different map pool of five maps. The five maps for the first week will be selected randomly. The following weeks will remove the two maps that each team played on the previous week. If both teams played the same map, we remove it and randomly remove another one. We then add the 2 maps that weren’t in the pool on the previous week to the new map pool, and the process repeats itself every week throughout the season.
Round Rotation
As mentioned, during the Pro League season matches will be played as a best of one, with each team playing one match every week. A coin toss will determine which team chooses the advantage in the first half of the season. The other team will be able to choose their advantage in the second half of the season. The “advantage” teams will be choosing between is either having the last ban or picking their starting side on the map. Teams will start out as either attack or defense and will stick to the same side for the first five consecutive rounds. After that, half-time will occur and teams will switch sides. The first team to win 6 rounds will win the map, with a possible total of 10 rounds able to be played. If the score of 5-5 occurs we have a tie. Our point system is pretty straightforward: one win is equal to three points, a tie is equal to one point per team, and a loss rewards zero points.
The LAN Difference
Some of the changes to the match format will not affect the format of LANs. The two major differences will be the tiebreak and the map veto, as tournaments will remain a best of three.
Map Veto System
At LAN events, maps will be decided through a veto map. Here’s how the veto map works: the low seeded team starts the veto map, the other team chooses it’s starting side. Just as with the regular Pro League season, the first team to win six rounds will win the map.
Tiebreak for Best of Three
While we’ve allowed ties during the regular season of Pro League, it’s obvious that we need a tiebreak for LAN events. Therefore, a tiebreak will occur after a map is tied 5-5. During a tiebreak, teams will switch sides each round. The first team to win two rounds in a row will win the map.
We couldn’t be more excited for Season 8 to begin on June 11th! To catch all of the action live, be sure to follow our official Twitch channel, and to stay up to date with all of the latest news and updates, follow us on Twitter.
