CEVO S9 Placement concludes

CEVO's ninth season saw the organisation team up with Gfinity to offer $125,000 finals in addition to a major overhaul to the structure of the season itself.

Instead of a regular league group stage format, the ninth season will feature four separate single-elimination brackets with 16 teams taking part in order to determine the four teams from each region that will qualify for the offline finals.

Interestingly, the sprawling CEVO Season 9 Placement tournament which has taken place in both Europe and North America during the previous week offered up two permanent spots for each region in all four of these brackets, as advancing teams from each week mean that lower finishing teams from the Placement tournament will still have a chance to take part in the later brackets.

In Europe, it was Swedish team CG (who recently revamped their roster with two new Swedish talents) who trumped Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli's ENCE in the Upper Bracket final with a score of 2-1 and the Finns then themselves survived a consolidational final battle against DenDD with a score of 2-1.

The North American region saw teams who have generally gone unnoticed from the wider international eye have their chance to shine as Vault were first to qualify for CEVO-P Season 9 after taking down Phong "⁠bee⁠" Nguyen's Bee's Money Crew in the Upper Bracket final.

The consolidation final paired bee's Money Crew against the ex-Astral Authority lineup who had played for that organisation earlier in 2015 and it was the latter team who cruised through the game with a 2-0 scoreline.

The final standings from both Placement tournaments are therefore found below. These teams, starting with the top two finishers, will join invited teams from the first single elimination bracket onward to determine offline finalists for CEVO-P Season 9.

Europe	North America
1. CG*	1. Vault*
2. ENCE*	2. ex-Astral Authority*
3. DenDD	3. Bee's Money Crew
4. Publiclir.se	4. Noble
5-6. PENTA	5-6. QuetzaL
5-6. Torpedo	5-6. ACE
7-8. BEASTS	7-8. WinOut.net
7-8. Null element Empire	7-8. Tectonic
9-12. QuackPack	9-12. Mostly Harmless
9-12. nevermind	9-12. SteamAnalyst
9-12.  fan jävla	9-12. RONIN
9-12. fm-eSports	9-12. No ID
13-16. Orgless	13-16. Out of Nowhere
13-16. YP	13-16. Dreamboat
13-16. Lions	13-16. Dying Breed
13-16. KILLERFISH	13-16. Vanquish

*The top two finishing teams will have a berth in all four, 16-team single elimination brackets.

An upcoming schedule and date for the first single elimination bracket of CEVO-P Season 9 is as of now forthcoming.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter