Today sees the announcement of the next ESL Major Series, covering 14 games and offering €13,000 in prize money. The largest single prize fund has been allocated to the CS:S competition, with a total of €3,000 up for grabs. CoD4 prize money has gone down however.

Hopefully, despite a €1000 drop from the previous season’s prize money, sign-ups for this event won’t suffer too much. Season V of EMS saw some great matches, culminating in an intense Grand Final between The Imperial and Team Alternate that resulted in a tightly fought victory for the Danes.

It is likely that the ever improving Imperial side will be hot favourites for season VI after their latest impressive performances, both on LAN and online. However, the German powerhouses of Team Alternate and mTw have an impressive record in this competition that cannot be ignored. On a domestic front, the British contingent needs to improve drastically on their performances in season V, if they want to make real headway in the competition. The recent announcement that Dignitas have folded has meant any hopes the UK has of doing well in the competition rest squarely on the shoulders of Power Gaming. That is unless TLR can build on their strong recent performances and step up to the plate.

With the season set to start next month and full details on qualification and a breakdown of prize money still yet to be announced, I for one can’t wait for the next season of EMS to kick into action.

CoD4 also received a prize fund of €1,000. Though this is a dip from season where it received €3,000. This will come as a blow for the CoD4 scene to see that ESL are not supporting CoD4 at a time where it can get over 40 teams to an event to the extent it always used to.

The statement from the ESL website:

“We proudly present to you the sixth season of Europe's top online league. Thirteen of the finest leagues, more than a thousand players competing, several thousand will try to qualify - and €13,000 worth of prize money. Get ready for the ESL Major Series Season VI!

The ESL Major Series is the highest level of European competition in the ESL for disciplines not included in the Intel Extreme Masters and has already awarded more than €85,000 in prize money to hundreds of gamers in the past three years.

We are now back with to bring you some of Europe's and beyond exciting matches and best gamers in the sixth instalment of the ESL Major Series.”