Eight CS:GO teams are ready to fight it out at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV - Beijing. This S-Tier event starts November 7 with the Grand Finals scheduled for November 10. At stake is a large share of the $250,000 prize pool along with an automatic seed to the Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV - World Championship in Katowice next year.
The eight teams participating in this tournament are:
- Group A
- Astralis (Invited)
- ENCE (Invited)
- Renegades (Invited)
- ViCi Gaming (Chinese Qualifier)
- Group B
- Evil Geniuses (Invited)
- FaZe Clan (Invited)
- Team Vitality (Invited)
- TYLOO (Asian Qualifier)
EG's Entry
Interestingly enough, EG’s entry is exciting to see. The team had previously shut down its Counter Strike division back in 2012 before making a comeback this year. However, EG manage to enter the CS:GO scene by acquiring the roster of NRG Esports. The decision proved to be fruitful with the roster winning ESL One New York 2019 back in September.
Fatigued
Last week, Liquid announced that they would no longer be part of the tournament. In a video shared on Twitter, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski said that constant travelling and jet lag had resulted in the roster feeling both "drained and exhausted."
As we come to the end of an extremely busy year, we have decided to make a concession to the schedule and miss IEM Beijing. We offer our sincere apologies to the fans who wanted to see us play, but we hope to be back at full strength soon #LetsGoLiquid pic.twitter.com/aJkKlen6g9
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) October 22, 2019
Serving as a replacement was Finnish team ENCE, who was the runner-up in the Katowice Major early this year. They remain to be one of the strongest teams in CS:GO, so it should be a treat seeing them at this upcoming tournament.
Visa Issues
Just this Tuesday, IEM announced that there was another change coming. CS: GO team mousesports dropping from the tournament citing visa issues. Serving as replacement was Renegades, who is certainly not a pushover. The team had reached 5th-8th during the IEM Katowice Major and 3rd-4th at StarLadder Berlin this year. Renegades have also been consistently in the top 10 not only in the ESL, but also the HLTV.org world rankings throughout the year.
Intel Grand Slam Season 3
This upcoming tournament is the fourth one under the Intel Grand Slam Season 3. The Intel Grand Slam is a series of 10 consecutive events where the first team to win either four S-Tier events or six events of the ten gets $1 million. In addition, a team who manages to deny another team from getting their final victory to the Intel Grand Slam gets a spoil bonus of $100,000. The difference for this award, unlike the main tournament, is that the prize is given directly to the players.
Season 1 was won by Astralis, with Team Liquid easily winning Season 2. So far, the teams that have one win each are Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and Fnatic. With Liquid making the decision to drop out of IEM Beijing, EG now has the chance to rack up a second win.
What about you? Who are you rooting for in the tournament? Does EG have what it takes or will the other teams prove to be too much?
