IEM XVI Cologne – Group Stage Preview

We’re 2 days into IEM Cologne and we’ve already seen a couple of teams getting eliminated from the event. The next stage will be crucial as to determine which teams will make it into the playoffs. Here’s our IEM XVI Cologne Group Stage Preview:

IEM XVI Cologne Group Stage – Who qualified?

In the top-side of the play-ins we had NiP, Team Vitality, BIG and FaZe that made it through. They all had to beat 2 teams, and for the most part, they did it flawlessly. The second part of the bracket featured the teams that lost in their initial matches, or the second round. Here we saw Complexity, Renegades, Team Spirit as well as Mousesports make it out.

Here’s a short list of the teams that were eliminated from the tournament:

  • 17th – Team LDLC
  • 18th – OG
  • 19th – Sprout
  • 20th – Evil Geniuses
  • 21st – Bad News Bears
  • 22nd – MiBR
  • 23rd – Team One
  • 24th – ViCi Gaming

Upcoming Matches

With the play-ins concluding its time to look toward the main event. Here we’ll have the qualified teams taking on the other teams that were already put in the main bracket of the group stage. Here are the initial match-ups:

Group Stage – July 8th 2021

Group A:

  • 13:30 CEST – Gambit Esports vs Mousesports
  • 13:30 CEST – Ninjas In Pyjamas vs Team Liquid
  • 16:45 CEST – Virtus.pro vs BIG
  • 16:45 CEST – Complexity vs G2 Esports

Group B:

  • 20:00 CEST – Natus Vincere vs Renegades
  • 20:00 CEST – Team Vitality vs Furia

It’s going to go down to the wire to see which teams qualify to the next stage, as there are only 6 slots available. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.

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Alternate Attax parts ways with entire CS:GO team

German esports organisation Alternate Attax have just announced that they are parting ways with their entire CS:GO team. Here is the announcement:

Alternate Attax parts ways with CS:GO team – Why?

In the statement above, ATNAttax revealed that the main reason for this is because of continuous disappointing results and performances.

Here are their best results in 2021:

  • 3rd-4th in ESL Meisterschaft: Autumn 2020 – 17th January 2021 – $4,830.72
  • 2nd at UNITED Pro Series Winter 2020 – 16th January 2021 – $7,246.13
  • 3rd-4th at ESL Meisterschaft: Spring 2021 – 15th May 2021 – $4,857.67

After the announcement above, they followed up with a statement to clarify the exact reasons as to why they’ve opted for this decision. Here is what they said:

“Our players have given their very best and we thank them so much for their efforts. We believe that this team of young stars and seasoned veterans would have performed beyond our expectations under better circumstances. Unfortunately, the global situation with the ongoing pandemic is beyond our control and due to these circumstances, the team was unable to live up to our expectations. We apologize to our players in particular if the original statement made it seem as if aTTaX didn’t care about their wellbeing and their future.”

Source

The management of ATNAttax then continued to say that this was a hard decision, but it was one that had to be made. In the following paragraph they described their journey since their roster changes in December of 2020 and how difficult it was to adapt.

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Cooper Announcing Switch to VALORANT

North American CS:GO player Cooper is announcing his switch to Riot’s FPS, VALORANT. Here is his announcement:

Cooper announcing switch to VALORANT – Who is he?

Austin “Cooper” Abadir is a 27-year-old FPS player from the United States. He first started with CS:GO, all the way back in 2017 with Morior Invictus Esports. He then started playing for teams like, Swole Patrol, eUnited, Ze Pug Godz, and most recently Triumph. Little fun fact about Cooper is that he’s the brother of another player who recently swapped to VALORANT, Freakazoid.

Here are some of Cooper’s accomplishments in CS:GO

  • 1st in Fragadelphia 12 – 5th August 2018 – $18,250
  • 6th at ESL Pro League Season 11: North America – 3rd April 2020 – $13,000
  • 2nd at ESEA Season 36: Premier Division – North America – 18th April 2021 – $12,500

The next step forward

Thankfully for Cooper, VALORANT is still quite a new esport. This means that rosters are still changing and shuffling, and it’s quite often to see up and coming players given the opportunity to represent a big org. Hopefully with Cooper’s experience and talent he can manage to find a solid spot on a great team in NA.

Make sure you keep yourself updated with all the latest and important esports news on www.esportsguide.com!

WePlay Esports Academy League announced

WePlay Esports have just revealed their very own Academy League. Here is everything you need to know about it:

WePlay Academy League – What is it?

As can be seen above, the (WAL) WePlay Academy League is going to be an event dedicated towards the youth squads. WePlay recognizes that the future of tomorrow in CS:GO esports is going to be these young players, and it’s important to develop this new generation accordingly.

Teams Participating

For their first edition of the WAL, WePlay are allowing 8 total teams to partake. Here is a short list of all of them:

  • Astralis Talent
  • Fnatic Rising
  • FURIA Academy
  • mouz NXT
  • NAVI Junior
  • BIG. OMEN Academy
  • Young Ninjas
  • VP.Prodigy
Screenshot  e
Credits: Liquipedia

Tournament Format + Dates

The WAL kicks off with its online qualifiers, taking place between the 19th of July and 8th of August. These qualifiers will play out in usual round-robin fashion, where each team will take on every other team twice in best of 1s. After all the online matches are concluded, the top 4 teams get a spot in the LAN event at Kyiv, Ukraine. This main event will play out between the 27th and 29th of August.

These 8 teams will battle it all out for the huge prize pool of $100,000 USD. This will be distributed between the top 4 teams of the main event.

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CS:GO Regional Major Rankings 2021 – Stacking Up For PGL Stockholm

Competitive CS:GO is awaited the next massive event. Specifically, this is the PGL Stockholm event with $2,000,000 on the line for the top 24 teams in the world. Accordingly, in order to advance to this stage, teams need to earn a spot. Indeed, below we have an in-depth look at how the rankings sit at this point in time. Let’s take a look below at all the CS:GO Regional Major Rankings!

Seeding – Legends, Challengers and Contenders

Prior to kicking things off, we need to discuss how the seeding will work. Indeed, for this incredible event PGL will resort to the Regional Major Rankings 2021. Here, varying from region to region, teams will qualify as either Legends, Challengers or Contenders.

Credits: NIP.CSGO Twitter

As you can imagine, the better the seeding, the less difficult your life will be at the main event. Do note we’ll be describing how standings are as of right now, susceptible to change for sure.

Europe CS:GO Regional Major Rankings:

Starting with Europe, the first three teams will be seeded as Legends, followed by 4-9th being Challengers. In conclusion, 10th and 11th are Contenders. Here’s how the standings are after the last event – Flashpoint 3:

  1. Ninjas in Pyjamas (1860) – Legend
  2. Heroic (1660)
  3. G2 Esports (1640)
  4. mousesports (1600) – Challenger
  5. BIG (1500)
  6. Team Vitality (1480)
  7. Astralis (1280)
  8. FunPlus Phoenix (1040)
  9. Double Poney (720)
  10. Complexity (700) – Contender
  11. Sprout (600)
Feature CSGO
Credits: ESL

North America:

Moving onwards, EXTREMUM, Team Liquid and FURIA Esports are your legends. Following them, Evil Geniuses are your Challengers, and O Plano are your Contenders. The last event here was the cs_summit 8:

  1. EXTREMUM (1880) – Legend
  2. Team Liquid (1840)
  3. FURIA Esports (1584)
  4. Evil Geniuses (1310) – Challenger
  5. O Plano (1300) – Contender
CS:GO Online Struggling
Credits: Valve

South America CS:GO Regional Major Rankings:

Here, only one team will be making the cut to the main events, with MIBR qualifying as Contenders above all other competitors who will be disqualified. The last event for this region was the Elite League S1:

  1. MIBR (1680) – only one qualifying as Contender
  2. Sharks Esports (1500)
  3. Paqueta Gaming (1400)

Asia:

Counter Strike Global Offensive New Dust  II GeeksULTD  e
Credits: Valve

Once again, here only one team will be qualifying for the main event which right now, looks like TYLOO. However, PWL S1 was the final event and since then ViCi Gaming are neck and neck with them.

  1. TYLOO (1600) – only one qualifying as Contender
  2. ViCi Gaming (1600)
  3. Invictus Gaming (1400)

Oceania:

Screenshot  e
Credits: Valve

A lesser region, here another Contender lies in waiting which likely looks to be Renegades after the recent EPIC League:

  1. Renegades (1680) – only one qualifying as Contender
  2. ORDER (1500)
  3. Dire Wolves (1300)

CIS CS:GO Regional Major Rankings:

Here, we’ve got plenty of seeds to go around. Legends will be found from the top 2, third place as a Challenger, and fourth to fifth acting as your contenders.

  1. Natus Vincere (3680) – Legend
  2. Team Spirit (3530)
  3. Gambit Esports 3475 – Challenger
  4. K23 (2575) – Contender
  5. forZe (2450)
Screenshot  e
Credits: Valve

As I’ll reiterate once again, for many of these regions, there’s still a lot to compete for. This summer, one can expect events across July and September, surrounding the player break which takes place in August.

Until then, anything can happen up to that point – we’re very excited to see the PGL Stockholm event in action later this year. The offline event will be an opportunity for the competitive CS:GO community to spread its wings and show what it’s made of in all parameters.

Once the time comes, we’ll happily confirm the seeds for the main event.

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WePlay Esports confirmed as official Russian broadcaster for PGL Major

It has been revealed that WePlay Esports is going to be the official Russian broadcaster for the PGL Major in Stockholm 2021. Here is the announcement:

WePlay Esports Russian broadcaster for PGL Major – What does this mean?

After the recently emerged news of issues regarding the host-destination of The International many were furious as to what would happen to the long-awaited CS:GO major. This announcement by WePlay reassures all the CS:GO fans that the event is still yet to take place, hopefully without any third party issues.

This is what Maksym Bilonogov, General Producer and CVO at WePlay Esports said about the news:

“WePlay Esports will bring everything we have to make this event the greatest tournament in CS:GO history. Our proficiency, previous events’ experience, bleeding-end production technology, endless passion and desire to create something new; everything will be unleashed during PGL Major Stockholm 2021.”

More information about the event

As it stands, the competition will play out between the 23rd of October, and 7th of November. More so, this will be the first CS:GO Major event in over 2 years. We’ve previously had Astralis grabbing the win in the most recent one, and with Gambit Esports taking the spotlight, it’s going to be interesting to see how it all goes down.

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Zonic reportedly considering leaving Astralis

According to a report by HLTV writer MIRAA, Zonic is considering leaving the Astralis lineup. Read on to know more:

Zonic considering leaving Astralis – Why?

The main reason for this consideration is due to Zonic’s contract with Astralis expiring on the 31st of December. As most of you know, Zonic is one of most decorated coaches, if not the most. His success with Astralis was extraordinary, but like most great things, they have an end. With Dev1ce’s departure from the squad a couple of months back, the team has had mixed results. 

Screenshot
Credits: Liquipedia

As can be seen in the image above, it hasn’t been easy for the team. According to some sources, the tension with the team has been building, and that could be another reason as to why Zonic would opt to leave the squad.

What’s next for Astralis?

Much like Zonic, 4 of the current Astralis players will also have their contracts expiring at the end of the year. As it stands, the only remaining member of the entire squad will be Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen, who joined the team back in July of 2020. As a result of their departing coach, Astralis are looking to poach the 8-month banned coach, Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen. In the end we will just have to wait and see how it all plays out.

Until then, be sure to tune into www.esportsguide.com for all your important esports news!

NAVI win StarLadder CIS RMR 2021

This past weekend we saw NAVI Win the StarLadder CIS RMR for 2021. Here is how it all went down:

Final Standings + Winnings:

  • 1st – $40,000 – Natus Vincere
  • 2nd – $15,000 – Gambit Esports
  • 3rd – $12,000 – Team Spirit
  • 4th – $10,000 – K23
  • 5th – $7,000 – forZe
  • 6th – $5,000 – Entropiq
  • 7th-8th – $3,000 – Nemiga Gaming
  • 7th-8th – $3,000 – 100PingGods
  • 9th-10th – $2,500 – Akuma
  • 9th-10th – $2,500 – Virtus.pro

NAVI win StarLadder CIS RMR 2021 – How did they do it?

Natus Vincere started the tournament in Group A of the group stage. Here they were up against teams like Gambit, ForZe, Nemiga as well as Akuma. Fortunately NAVI won 3 and lost only 1, getting them 2nd place in the group, enough to qualify to the playoffs.

Playoffs

Their first match-up in the double-elimination bracket was against Team Spirit. Here, Team Spirit put up a solid fight, but it was NAVI that took the series win (2-1). Then came Gambit Esports, #1 ranked worldwide at the time of writing. NAVI started out strong, winning Dust 2 16-8 but Gambit clutched up in the final 2 maps. This dropped Natus Vincere to the lower bracket where they took down Team Spirit for a second time. With this win in the lower bracket final, NAVI progressed toward the Grand Final.

Grand Final

This is where they were tasked with rematching their main rivals, Gambit Esports. Gambit has a default win, and won the first map of the series, Ancient. However what followed was a dominant performance from NAVI, winning all 3 maps consecutively. Here is how it all ended:

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How To watch DreamHack Open June 2021 NA: teams, format, schedule, streams, predictions

Next week we’ll be seeing another DreamHack event take place, the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA. Here’s our full tournament guide of the event, and how to watch it.

Tournament’s background

The DreamHack Open June 2021 is going to be DreamHack’s 5th event this year. They first started with the regional events in January, and then in March. Now they are hosting their first Summer event with the North American Open June tournament. Previously we’ve had paiN Gaming and Extra Salt come out on top, who will be the next champion?

How to qualify for the main event

For the most part, the teams that made it to the main event have qualified via the ESL World Ranking. There were 6 teams in total that were picked out, and the 2 other slots were filled through the closed qualifier.

Prize distribution for the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA

A total of $70,000 will be given out to all the participants taking part in the event. This is how the prize money will be spread:

  • 1st – $35,000
  • 2nd – $15,000
  • 3rd-4th – $6,000
  • 5th-6th – $2,500
  • 7th-9th – $1,500

Tournament Format

The tournament format for this event is very simple. It all starts with the group stage, consisting of 2 separate groups with 4 teams each. Here, all matches are in a best of 3, and the top 2 teams from each group advance to the next stage.

The follow up stage is the playoffs. Here the final 4 teams play in a single-elimination bracket where the initial matches are best of 3. The grand finals of the tournament is a best of 5.

Teams Participating at the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA

There will be a total of 8 teams taking part in the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA. Here’s a short list stating every single team that is participating:

Schedule list for the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA

The event starts on the 29th of June with the Group Stage and will keep on playing till the 3rd of July. After the group stage concludes, the Playoffs kick off on the 2nd of July. This is when the initial games of the event will play out:

Group A – June 29/30, 2021:

  • 21:00 CEST – paiN Gaming vs Third Impact
  • 00:30 CEST – RBG Esports vs Party Astronauts

Group B – June 29/30, 2021:

  • 21:00 CEST – Extra Salt vs Triumph
  • 00:30 CEST – GODSENT vs O PLANO

Streaming platform list

The event will stream on the official DreamHack CSGO twitch channel. There has been no mention of other tournament streams going on, so the main stream will be that.

Watch the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA stream on esportsguide.com

You can also watch the DreamHack Open June 2021 NA live stream via our very own website. Providing an extensive list of the biggest esports together with streams for each esports match live today or upcoming matches.

Predictions

North American Counter Strike has been quite a sight to behold. With a majority of the top NA teams moving to Europe to participate in Tier 1 events, it’s been quite exciting to see which teams emerge as the best. For this event, we’d have to place our odds on Extra Salt and Triumph to take the win!

Be sure to keep yourself updated with www.esportsguide.com for all your esports news!

How To Watch IEM Season XVI Cologne: teams, format, schedule, streams, predictions

One of the largest CS:GO events of the year is just around the corner. The IEM Season XVI Cologne event will feature the best teams in the world and will take place between the 6th and 18th of July. Here’s our full tournament guide of the event!

Tournament’s background

Intel Extreme Masters (abbreviated as IEM) is the longest-running global pro gaming tour in the world. This is going to be the second IEM event of the year, as the first one (IEM Summer) was held in June. Here we had OG placing 2nd, and Gambit Esports coming out as eventual winners.

How to qualify for the main event

For the majority of the teams participating in this event, they’ve qualified through the Road To Cologne event. This tournament was hosted for multiple regions, and from it, came 16 teams. The rest have qualified via the ESL World Ranking or other qualifying tournaments.

Prize distribution for the IEM Season XVI Cologne event

There will be a total of $1,000,000 to be split between all participating teams. Here is a list of how the prize pool will be spread:

  • 1st – $400,000
  • 2nd – $180,000
  • 3rd/4th – $80,000
  • 5th-6th – $40,000
  • 7th-8th – $24,000
  • 9th-12th – $16,000
  • 13th-16th – $10,000
  • 17th-20th – $4,500
  • 21st-24th – $2,500

Tournament Format

The event kicks off with the Play-in stage. Here we’ll have 16 teams playing through a double elimination bracket. The opening matches are best of one, whereas the matches that follow are best of 3. Here, only the top 8 teams will qualify onto the next stage (groups).

The group stage will play out in 2 double-elimination format groups. Each group will consist of 8 teams and they are seeded through the ESL Ranking and EPT Rankings. The top 3 teams of each group qualify to the next stage:

  • Group stage winners advance to the Semifinals
  • The Group stage runners-up advance to the Quarterfinals as the High Seeds
  • Group stage 3rd place teams advance to the Quarterfinals as the Low Seeds

The final stage of the tournament is the playoffs. Here, the final 6 teams play in a single-elimination bracket. All of the matches are best of 3, with the only exception being the Grand Finals (best of 5).

Teams Participating at IEM Season XVI Cologne

A total of 24 teams are participating in the IEM Season XVI Cologne. The team list is split in 2, one being the Directly Qualified Teams and the other being the Play-In Teams. Here’s a short list of all teams taking part, separated accordingly:

Directly Qualified Teams:

Play-in Teams:

Schedule list

The event kicks off on the 6th of July and will continue to play out till the 18th. Here’s a short list of the starting matches:

Upper Bracket Round 1 – July 6th:

  • 12:00 CEST – NiP vs LDLC, BNB vs Mouz, Spirit vs MiBR
  • 13:30 CEST – RNG vs VIT
  • 13:40 CEST – OG vs oNe
  • 13:40 CEST – Sprout vs BIG
  • 15:00 CEST – EG vs FaZe
  • 15:20 CEST – CoL vs Vici

Streaming platform list

The event’s main stream will be in English and it will be on the official ESL CS:GO twitch channel. The tournament will broadcast on Secondary and Tertiary channels too. As a bonus it will also stream in Russian (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary).

Watch the IEM Season XVI Cologne stream on esportsguide.com

You can also watch the IEM Season XVI Cologne live stream via our very own website. Providing an extensive list of the biggest esports together with streams for each esports match live today or upcoming matches.

Predictions for IEM Season XVI Cologne

With Gambit being so far ahead at the moment in terms of consistency, it’s hard to not to mention them as our winning prediction. Nevertheless, teams like Astralis, NAVI and Heroic have also proved their worth, and are certainly solid contenders to win. In the end, we’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out!

Be sure to keep yourself updated with www.esportsguide.com for all your esports news!