Eight professional Counter-Strike teams will play at the CS:GO Asia Championships in Shangai, China starting on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
Evil Geniuses and AVANGAR are the only top-10 ranked teams at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that mousesports, G2, ENCE, and MIBR can’t cause a few upsets.
Here’s everything you need to know about the CS:GO Asia Championships.
Stream
CS:GO Asia Championships will be fully broadcast on PGL’s Twitch channel. There won’t be any simultaneous matches, so it’ll be easier to watch your favorite team.
Format
Matches will be played for six days in Shangai. Eight teams will fight for their share of the $500,000 prize pool.
The teams will be split into two double-elimination GSL groups. The top team from each group will advance straight to the semifinals, while the second and third team from each group will head to the quarterfinals. All matches will be played as best-of-three series.
The winner of CS:GO Asia Championships will earn $250,000. The runners-up will take home $100,000, while the semifinalists get $50,000 each.
Teams
Group A
- Evil Geniuses: Ethan Arnold, Tarik Celik, Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte, Cvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov, and Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz
- G2: Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač , Kenny “kennyS” Schrub, François “AMANEK” Delaunay, Nemanja “nexa” Isaković , and Audric “JaCkZ” Jug
- MIBR: Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga, Vito “kNgV-” Giuseppe, Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, and Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles
- TYLOO: Hansel “BnTeT” Ferdinand, Wing Hei “Freeman” Cheung, HaoWen “somebody” Xu, YuLun “Summer” Cai, and YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng
Group B
- AVANGAR: Ali “Jame” Djami, Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev, Alexey “qikert” Golubev, Timur “buster” Tulepov, and Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev
- mousesports: Finn “karrigan” Andersen, Robin “ropz” Kool, Chris “chrisJ” de Jong, Özgür “woxic” Eker, and David “frozen” Čerňanský
- ENCE: Aleksi “allu” Jalli, Jere “sergej” Jalo, Miikka “suNny” Kemppi, Jani “Aerial” Jussila, and Sami “xSeveN” Laasanen
- ViCi: Zhong “zhokiNg” Weijie, Liu “aumaN” Zhihong, Liang “advent” Zhuo, Andrew “kaze” Khong, and Yi “JamYoung” Yang
Schedule
Tuesday, Nov. 19
- 9pm CT: G2 vs. TYLOO
Wednesday, Nov. 20
- 12am CT: EG vs. MIBR
- 3am CT: ENCE vs. ViCi
- 6am CT: AVANGAR vs. mousesports
- 9pm CT: Group A winners’ match
Thursday, Nov. 21
- 12am CT: Group A elimination match
- 3am CT: Group B winners’ match
- 6am CT: Group B elimination match
Friday, Nov. 22
- 11pm CT: First quarterfinal
Saturday, Nov. 23
- 2am CT: Second quarterfinal
- 11pm CT: First semifinal
Sunday, Nov. 24
- 2am CT: Second semifinal
- 5am CT: Grand finals
Key storylines
EG had a tough time in China earlier this month when they didn’t advance to IEM Beijing playoffs. This cost them the No. 1 spot in HLTV’s world rankings, but a win in Shangai would put the North Americans in a good position to regain the title.
AVANGAR had a good start in the second part of the season. They were the runners-up at the StarLadder Berlin Major in August and won BLAST Pro Series Moscow in September. But the Kazakhs have slowed down since and will have to perform well at the CS:GO Asia Championships to maintain their top-10 status.
ENCE aren’t the same team that surprisingly finished second at the IEM Katowice Major in February. The Finns opted to bench the captain Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen after the StarLadder Berlin Major to add the superstar suNny. The change, however, didn’t pay off since ENCE have yet to advance to a tournament’s playoffs. This tournament may be one of their last chances to show something before another roster change is needed.
G2 had an amazing start to StarSeries i-League season eight in October but played badly in the playoffs. Fans will be curious to see how huNter- and nexa have adapted to their French teammates and if they have anything new to show to surprise the rest of the teams.
