ESL One New York: Preview

CS2 / News / 25 September 2018 — 13:45

The tournament starts on September 26!

ESL One New York is set to take place within a few days after the FACEIT Major, extending the list of this season's Intel Grand Slam events. Today we will be taking a closer look at the tournament format and trying to predict how it will pan out.

As usual, the tournament will be staged by Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This is the home arena of Brooklyn Nets and New York Islanders which also hosts concerts and numerous other events throughout the year. It can accommodate 19,000 spectators.

The tournament will be held in two phases: a group stage and the playoffs, with a total of 8 teams competing for the $ 250,000 prize pool. The teams will be split into 2 groups of 4 and battle it out in a bo3 format. Only 2 teams from each group will advance into the playoffs, which will be played as a single elimination, best of 3 bracket, except for the bo5 grand final. The dates are September 26-30.

ESL One New York is another event counting towards the Intel Grand Slam, where the teams are competing for $ 1,000,000 which will be granted to the four-time champions of ESL and DreamHack Masters events. At the moment, FaZe Clan and Astralis are leading the race. So far, both teams have 2 wins and 5 attempts left. As far as our squad goes, after winning ESL One Cologne 2018 we joined the competition and need three more wins to make it to the main goal, having 8 attempts to go. We will have a great chance to get closer to it in New York.

Let's take a look at our group stage opponents: we have been seeded to Group A alongside Gambit, fnatic and mousesports. The first round will see us pitted against Gambit, while fnatic will be taking on mousesports.

Semifinals
Winners' Finals
To the playoffs

NAVI.GG.BET

Gambit

Fnatic

mousesports

TBD

Round 1
Losers' Finals

TBD

Two teams from our group have gone through roster changes recently to make up for their mixed results in London. Gambit announced they are ready to begin negotiations regarding Hobbit's transfer, but we'll see him perform in New York, while fnatic decided to bench flusha and replace him with ScreaM. Many rumors have been circulating about mousesports, too, as some believe oskar is going to part ways with the team.

Therefore, we have three teams that are currently struggling with their rosters in our group, which may give our boys some freedom and allow them to save all the fun stuff for the playoffs.

We hope the boys will be able to concentrate fully on the task at hand, as winning ESL New York would not only mean securing our 4th title in 2018, but also closing in on the current leaders of Intel Grand Slam! #gonavi