ECS S6 Finals are here. Are you ready?

The Counter-Strike scene is getting bigger and bigger every year since Valve brought the younger sister of the well-known Counter-Strike 1.6 - the Global Offensive lady - on board to start a new chapter of our favourite FPS game. And I must admit that from the release date (2012), we and the game itself made a huge way to be one of the strongest and consistent esports titles in the history of video games. And why am I telling you all this? Well, because of this beautiful environment we are a part of, we can enjoy the end of this year with one of the latest prestigious events in 2018 - The ECS Finals!

The sixth season of The ECS Finals will be held on November 22-25 at the Esports Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with $660,000 in prize money, with the winning team taking home $250,000. Yeah, Santa Claus will come early this year kids, okay?! :)

Before we will have a deeper look at participating teams, I would like to introduce you the team of people who will make this event easier and more pleasant for you. The winner of the “Esports Broadcaster” of 2017, English man Alex "Machine" Richardson will be as usual your desk host and will take care of the rest of ex-pro players such as Jason "moses" O'Toole from the US, Jacob "Pimp" Winneche (Danish ex-player of Team Liquid and Dignitas ) and, the last but not the least, Finnish pioneer in NA CS (back in the 1.6 days) - Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen. 

Alex "Machine" Richardson

The broadcast team will then complete the whole crew list with five commentators including the well-known casters from FACEIT, the duo of Daniel "ddk" Kapadia and James Bardolph, as well as the Canadian-British combo - Henry "HenryG" Greer and Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett. So most prominent casters lineup of the Counter-Strike world awaits for us. Happy? I bet you are! The full list of the latent team is listed below: 

Alex "Machine" Richardson - Host
Pala "Mantrousse" Gilroy Sen - Reporter
Freya Spiers - Reporter
Jason "moses" O'Toole - Analyst
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche - Analyst
Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen - Analyst
James Bardolph - Commentator
Daniel "ddk" Kapadia - Commentator
Henry "HenryG" Greer - Commentator
Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett - Commentator
Mohan "launders" Govindasamy - Commentator

Contestants of the ECS Finals

Now, we can move on to the part you are probably most interested in: teams that made their way through the online stage of the league and progressed to the Finals in the USA. Just make sure you understand the whole process. Twenty world-class teams were split to two regions - Europe and North America. All teams were playing the online phase (through the season) where top-4 teams from each region booked the ticket to Texas. 

The best European teams for this season are Danish duo Astralis and North, European mix Mousesports and Swedish veterans from NiP. Australian players from Renegades reached the first spot in the North American region but, unfortunately, due to visa issues are unable to attend this event and had to leave their spot for the U.S. army supported team Cloud9 (which ended up on the 5th place). NRG, Made in Brazil and Team Liquid will then join Cloud9 to complete the participating teams from North America.

FACEIT already announced the groups, which you can see right below:

We have also know the full schedule, with the opening match starting on Thursday, 16:00 CET with Astralis facing C9:

Thursday, November 22

16:00 | Astralis vs. Cloud9 | BO1
17:30 | mousesports vs. MIBR | BO1
19:00 | NRG vs. NiP | BO1
20:30 | Liquid vs. North | BO1
22:00 | Group A winners' match | BO3
01:00 | Group B winners' match | BO3

Friday, November 23

16:00 | Group A elimination match | BO3
19:00 | Group B elimination match | BO3
22:00 | Group A decider | BO3
01:00 | Group B decider | BO3

Saturday, November 24

19:00 | Semi-final #1 | BO3
22:00 | Semi-final #2 | BO3

Sunday, November 25

18:30 | Texas Collegiate Showdown | BO1
19:30 | Movember ECS Showmatch | BO1
22:00 | Grand final | BO3

"Winner winner chicken dinner" or who's gonna win? 

And the best kept for the last. My infallible predictions. Well, Astralis is gonna win. Thanks for your attention. See ya! 

Nope, I am just playing with you, you know that, but what else you can say if the Danes are so dominant these days? They win almost everything they play. It was their 7th title this year in Chicago last week and 3rd Intel Grand Slam triumph which means they need to win just one tournament organised by ESL or DreamHack and they will earn $1,000,000 in cash. So that’s why I am so sure about them. 

On the other hand, Liquid are playing great. Really! Especially Twistzz has grown so much this year. Same like REZ in NiP or Oskar from mousesports. They are all beasts and to be honest, the whole scene is more competitive than ever. But the Astralis are standing as a unit. Like one real team. Every kid wants to be like them. And I am with them. They are indeed one step forward against others. And in my eyes, they will be unstoppable once again when they connect to the server. But it’s Counter-Strike. Anything could happen. And if I say anything I mean it. I am being part of this environment for too long to know how CS scene works … 

As usual, we will look closer to every match to bring you the best possible moments and highlights from this event. So stay with us, you will not regret!

A blast from the past!

Yeah, I know, there are tons of action waiting ahead but to appreciate today, you have to appreciate the past. I would love to ask you for 22 minutes of your life to remember the best moments of the last season, where Astralis triumphed once again, winning over Team Liquid on two maps in the Grand Final.