The ELeague Season 2 'Counter-Strike' tournament schedule is out
The schedule for Season 2 of ELeague's premiere Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament is now available, starting with qualifiers and preliminaries in September and ending with the grand finals match in early December.
The schedule
ELeague Season 2 kicks off with online open qualifiers for European teams Sept. 3-5 and American teams Sept. 10-12. The qualifiers will be followed by two days of online regional preliminary rounds featuring 16 teams from each region.
All of the teams that participated in ELeague Season 1 will automatically be invited to the preliminary rounds. The top four teams from each region will advance to LAN group stages along with the top eight teams from Season 1. The teams that already qualify for group stages include last season's champion Virtus.pro, Fnatic, Mousesports, Na'Vi, Team EnVyUs, Cloud9, Astralis and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
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Starting Oct. 21, the 16 qualifying teams will compete in four different groups at the ELeague Arena in Atlanta. The group stages are double elimination, so the top two teams advance to the playoffs after the fourth group concludes play Nov. 19.
The playoffs start with LAN quarterfinals Nov. 29 and 30, followed by semifinals Dec. 2 and the grand finals Dec. 3. All of the playoff matches will take place at the ELeague Arena in Atlanta.
Every match will be available to watch live on Twitch along with select matches being broadcast on TBS: the grand finals at 4 p.m. ET, the semifnials match at 10 p.m. and Friday group stage matches at 10 p.m.
The changes
After receiving feedback about the tournament structure of Season 1, ELeague has truncated its second season, condensing group stage play to just two days per group and the playoffs to a single week.
ELeague has also taken out the last chance bracket that gave two teams an extra chance at making it to the playoffs. From group stages to grand finals, ELeague Season 2 will last just over six weeks with only the end of ESL Pro League Season 4 Oct. 28-30 intermingling with the tournament schedule. Teams will not play any games that weekend.
ELeague has not announced the prize pool for its second season. Last season's prize pool was $1.4 million.
ELeague is owned by Turner Broadcasting, which also is an investor in Mashable.
