Eight CS:GO teams will play for $500,000 at the ECS season seven finals, which starts on Thursday, June 6.
All of the teams in attendance are either European or North American. This will be the first non-BLAST event for Astralis after they won the IEM Katowice Major in February. The Danes need to perform well in order to keep their title of best team in the world. MIBR, Vitality, and NiP are among the other favorites that will be vying for the crown.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ECS season seven finals.
Stream
The ECS season seven finals will be broadcast on FACEIT’s Twitch channel. There will not be any simultaneous matches.
Format
The tournament will last four days, with the grand finals set to be played on June 9. Eight teams will fight for their share of the $500,000 prize pool. A breakdown of the prize money hasn’t been announced yet.
The teams were split into two groups, which features a double-elimination GSL format. The opening matches will be played as a best-of-one game, but the rest of the competition is best-of-three series. The top two teams from each group advance to the playoffs, which is played in a single-elimination format.
Teams
Group A:
- Astralis: Nicolai “device” Reedtz, Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, Emil “Magisk” Reif, and Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander
- Ninjas in Pyjamas: Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Fredrik “REZ” Sterner, Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson, and Dennis Edman
- NRG: Ethan Arnold, Tarik Celik, Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte, Cvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov, and Damian “daps” Steele
- FURIA: Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato, Yuri “yuurih” Gomes, Andrei “arT” Piovezan, Vinicius “VINI” Figueiredo, and Rinaldo “ableJ” Moda
Group B:
- MIBR: Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Marcelo “coldzera” David, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga, Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, and João “felps” Vasconcellos
- Vitality: Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire, Nathan “NBK” Schmitt, Cédric “RpK” Guipouy, and Alex McMeekin
- North: Valdemar “valde” Bjørn, Markus Kjærbye, Nicklas Gade, Philip “aizy” Aistrup, and Jakob “JUGi” Hansen
- compLexity: Shahzeb “ShahZam” Khan, Rory “dephh” Jackson, Ricardo “Rickeh” Mulholland, Hunter “SicK” Mims, and Owen “oBo” Schlatter
Schedule
The ECS season seven finals will begin at 4am CT on Thursday.
Thursday, June 6
- 4am CT: Astralis vs. FURIA
- 5:30am CT: NiP vs. NRG
- 7am CT: Vitality vs. coL
- 8:30am CT: MIBR vs. North
- 10am CT: Group A winners match
- 1pm CT: Group B winners match
Friday, June 7
- 4am CT: Group A elimination match
- 7am CT: Group B elimination match
- 10am CT: Group A decider match
- 1pm CT: Group B decider match
Saturday, June 8
- 7am CT: First semifinal
- 10am CT: Second semifinal
Sunday, June 9
- 10am CT: Grand finals
Key storylines
The spotlight will obviously be on Astralis this weekend. The Danes will have to prove that they’re still the best team in the world after Team Liquid won two major tournaments: IEM Sydney in May and DreamHack Masters Dallas last weekend.
Vitality surprisingly beat ENCE and Liquid to win cs_summit four two weeks ago. But the French team couldn’t carry their momentum into Dallas, where they fell in the quarterfinals against FURIA.
MIBR are still trying to repeat their best performance this year at the IEM Katowice Major. FalleN and crew haven’t won a major tournament since the ESL Pro League season six finals during their SK Gaming days in December 2017.
FURIA played well at DreamHack Masters Dallas, reaching the playoffs of a big tournament for the first time. The Brazilians lost to Liquid in the semifinals and were the biggest sensation for the casters and analysts.
NRG, NiP, and North will try to break into the top five ranks, but they have yet to reach the grand finals of a big event this year.
CompLexity will play their first event with oBo. The 15 year-old just signed with the organization and will replace stanislaw on the lineup. Dephh will be the in-game leader.
