ELEAGUE, the premium esports content and live tournament brand from Turner and IMG, will feature a match between two previous ELEAGUE Major champions as Astralis (Denmark) takes on Cloud9(USA) to kick off the ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018. Live tournament coverage will begin Saturday, July 21, at 2 p.m. ET on the ELEAGUETV Twitch channel, and will also be available free of charge on B/R Live. In addition, live coverage will be available through ELEAGUE’s award-winning Game Command mosaic video player, which gives viewers access to thousands of different in-game viewing angles. A multi-part feature series revisiting the tournament’s best moments will be presented beginning Friday, Aug. 24, on TBS.
Groups, Match Order & Format
During the Group Stage, held Saturday, July 21-Wednesday, July 25, the top eight-ranked teams in the world – according to their position in the HLTV.org rankings on May 21, 2018 – will compete at ELEAGUE Arena for a one million dollar purse.
Teams will be split into two groups of four teams each, playing best-of-three matches in a double elimination bracket. The top two performing teams from each group will advance to the single elimination Playoffs, held Saturday and Sunday, July 28-29. The winning team will be crowned ELEAGUE Champion and receive the largest share of prize money.
Tournament Storylines
- New Look for Cloud9
The Group Stage will offer fans the first chance to see Cloud9’s latest lineup, following the team’s recent announcement that Tarik “Tarik” Celik and Jake “Stewie2k” Yip have left the organization. This represents the first time that Cloud9 has played a high stakes tournament with this new lineup. Maikil “Golden” Selim of FNATIC, and Martin “STYKO” Styk of mousesports are likely to fill in for the former superstars. - Made in Brazil
Fans will be able to see the former core of SK Gaming – elite Brazilian players Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga and Marcelo “coldzera” David – joined by Tarik and Stewie2k as the group competes under the Made in Brazil or mibr banner. The team, owned by Brazilian organization Immortals, will look to capture the best aspects of each of its newly-acquired stars. - European Showdown
The FaZe Clan vs. mousesports first round match will see two squads ranked in the top five globally go head to head on the second day of live Premier action. German team mousesports will trot out its lineup anchored by Chris “chrisJ” de Jong and Tomas “oskar” Stastny, as well as recent addition and former Virtus.pro competitor Janusz “snax” Pogorzelski. Meanwhile, FaZe Clan will continue with the stacked squad of CS:GO legends Nikola “Niko” Kovac, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs, Finn “Karrigan” Andersen and Havard “rain” Nygaard. FaZe will also feature the return of superstar Olof “Olofmeister” Kajbjer, who had taken leave from the pro circuit since April until recently announcing his return to competition.
