How to watch the $1.1 million ELeague 'CS:GO' Season 2 playoffs
Only eight Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams are left in ELeague Season 2: Team Dignitas, SK Gaming, Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Mousesports, OpTic Gaming, Virtus.pro and FaZe Clan.
ELeague Season 2 is one of the last big tournaments of the year and one of the last LAN events for these teams to prove themselves before the first Major of 2017 in January.
The quarterfinals matches start at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday and Thursday on Twitch, followed by the first semifinals match at 5 p.m. ET Friday and the second match at 10 p.m. ET broadcast on both Twitch and TBS. The finals finish off Season 2 of ELeague on Twitch and TBS at 4 p.m. ET Saturday.
Most of the teams heading into the quarterfinals Wednesday have seen some recent success, and almost any one of these eight teams could walk away with the biggest piece of the $1.1 million prize pool.
In the upper half of the bracket, Team Dignitas kicks off the playoffs against SK Gaming at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, followed by Astralis taking on Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Team Dignitas has crept its way into the top five of Counter-Strike in the second half of 2016, managing to take first place at Epicenter 2016 in late October after beating out Fnatic, Na'Vi and Virtus.pro. Dignitas can be inconsistent though and haven't had much experience against SK Gaming.
SK Gaming is coming into ELeague with something to prove. Since winning the last Major at ESL One Cologne in July, SK's squad has been placing between second and fourth in every tournament they've played and were disqualified from ELeague Season 1 for trading organizations. Seeing SK advance to the semifinals would not be a surprise.
SK Gaming is coming into ELeague with something to prove.
Astralis has been a solid team in 2016 but has only placed in the top four of big tournaments twice since the MLG Major in April. Astralis managed to top SK Gaming in the group stage of ELeague but may have trouble staying consistent against the strong teams left in the playoffs.
Ninjas in Pyjamas is arguably one of the top three CS:GO teams in the world right now, racking up two first place finishes at Intel Extreme Masters Oakland and StarSeries Season 2 in the last last two months. As the only team in the world to have three premier tournament championships this year, NiP is likely to advance to the next round.
In the lower half of the bracket, Mousesports take on OpTic Gaming at 2 p.m. ET Thursday, followed by Virtus.pro vs. FaZe Clan.
Mousesports returns to ELeague without a whole lot to show for. The team placed third/fourth at ESL Pro League in October and ELeague Season 1 in July but haven't seen much success outside of that in 2016.
OpTic Gaming is one of two CS:GO teams in the playoffs that may have a worse track record than Mousesports, which is lucky for Mouse. OpTic won Northern Arena Montreal recently but didn't have too much competition there, mostly placing below fourth at big tournaments in 2016. It would be surprising to see OpTic go beyond the semis if they manage to beat Mousesports.
Virtus.pro is undoubtedly the best looking team in the lower half of the bracket.
Virtus.pro is undoubtedly the best looking team in the lower half of the bracket, having won ELeague Season 1 and DreamHack Bucharest in the past few months and placing second at ESL One New York and Epicenter 2016. As defending ELeague champions and notorious LAN performers, Virtus.pro has a good shot of making it to the finals.
Up against Virtus.pro is FaZe Clan, which has done well in online matches but hasn't seen much success at all in LAN tournaments in 2016. With Virtus.pro as FaZe's opponent, a win for FaZe would be quite the upset.
ELeague is owned by Turner Broadcasting, which also is an investor in Mashable.
