EPICENTER 2018 announced with $300,000 prize pool

15-8-2018 12:25

The organizers of EPICENTER have announced their 2018 tournament which will take place in October with a $300,000 prize pool.

EPICENTER have returned after holding two tournaments in the last two years. The 2018 edition will take place in Moscow, Russia with the group stage scheduled for October 22-25. The Park of Legends Ice Palace will host the playoffs from October 27-28.

The event will feature eight teams, five of which will be directly invited. On October 19, the team that is ranked the highest on the HLTV rankings among the winners of the regional qualifiers held in Europe, CIS, Americas, and China, will also be invited to the main event.

EPICENTER will take place in October

The other three regional qualifier winners and a wild card invite will meet on October 22 on LAN in the Wild Card Qualifier where the last two spots in the main event will be on offer.

Here are the dates and registration links for the open qualifiers for Europe and Americas qualifiers:

> Europe open qualifier #1 - August 19th
> Europe open qualifier #2 - August 23rd
> Europe open qualifier #3 - August 27th
> Europe open qualifier #4 - August 31st

> Americas open qualifier #1 - August 21st
> Americas open qualifier #2 - August 25th
> Americas open qualifier #3 - August 29th
> Americas open qualifier #4 - September 2nd

Poggers Only American and European qualifiers?? Come on...

2018-08-15 12:26

20 replies

lol Virtus.pro Wild Card Invite confirmed

13 replies

They came 2nd last year so renegades and VP will probably get an invite

2018-08-15 12:37

12 replies

Ofc vp will get invite. Bc vp and epicenter have same owners

2018-08-15 13:16

7 replies

and "magicaly" they go all the way to the final again. (ruski mafia take care of it)

2018-08-15 13:37

6 replies

true that

2018-08-15 16:18

Virtuspro played insanely at the last tournament lad. The grand finals was the best I've ever witnessed.

2018-08-15 22:01

2 replies

eleague majors?

2018-09-03 10:02

1 reply

No, I mean the last Epicenter tournament

2018-09-04 00:09

All credits to Kuben due Epicenter doesnt follows Volvo couching rule.

2018-08-16 00:25

Pashabiceps take care of it

2018-08-17 13:28

They came 2nd place on epicenter Moscow too

2018-08-15 19:40

3 replies

Yeah I saw. I hope they get 2nd or even first this time

2018-08-15 19:50

I don't think so, with all due respect to this team. I don't believe, that they will get to the play off

2018-08-15 19:52

I have hope

2018-08-15 19:54

oh noooo.....

2018-08-15 12:28

No, there are qualifiers for Europe, Americas, CIS and Asia.

2018-08-15 12:30

Only open quals for EU and NA. The Chinese and CIS will probably be invite only

2018-08-15 12:45

Cis can play eu quals

2018-08-15 13:17

cis qual starts 24 september

2018-08-15 13:29

Ah so is it like the CIS qual goes into the EU one after?

2018-08-15 13:35

EZ FOR VP

2018-08-15 12:25

EZ vp

V l

thats why no navi and astralis at starladder

5 replies

It's one week between this and starladder and since both tournaments in east europe I don't see any problem to participate in both. It's always a pleasure to play in front of homecrowd.

please use your brain... having an event a week or two before another tournament completely impacts your preparation for the second event, and also gives an insight to other teams on any changes you've made tactically. It's completely possible they had already agreed to EPICENTER before Starladder approached them, or they didn't want to potentially flop EPICENTER, so picked the event over Starladder. The game is completely oversaturated. I respect teams who want to keep their legacy as a great team, not settle for just semi-finals and on top of that maintain a healthier lifestyle not travelling every week of their life.

2018-08-15 13:30

+1 Bet all the top 4-5 Teams are going to Epicenter instead of Starladder thats the reason why Starladder only got the Rest.

2018-08-15 15:59

Astralis and NaVi skip events because of preparation.

2018-08-16 01:35

Right, finally we got an explanation.

2018-08-15 21:36

PogChamp

ez 4 s1mple

Liquid

Bring back stage guy or riot

da bratan

Expected

Great

c u there

VP INVITED 100 INFA

Ofc. Bc vp and epicenter have same owners

2018-08-15 13:05

YES

YAAAY MOSCOW THANKS GOD

2018-08-15 12:27

Yobanaya derevnya

reported.

2018-08-15 15:22

2018-08-15 16:09

no africa qualifier? smh

RIP VP

2018-08-15 20:55

Why not SPb f*ck

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PITER SOSAT'!

Dasha <3

ez for asstrashish

2018-08-15 12:31

Astralis, Na'Vi, FaZe, Liquid, mouz - first 5 invites

2018-08-15 13:40

No - VP, NaVi, Faze, Mouz, Liquid are first five invites. Astralis will get their invite as highest team in world rating later.

2018-08-15 21:39

fuck I really wanted it to take place in Saint Petersburg again :(((( well I'll see it next year I guess

2018-08-15 12:33

Prize pool is smaller than the previous year. That's not a good sign for CS.

2018-08-15 12:32

russian/ukraine events are shit anyway all of them

Epicenter is easily one of the best events of the year the fuck u smoking

2018-08-15 13:14

crowd suck arena suck trash noise on backgreound cuz russian casters

2018-08-15 16:17

crowd doesnt suck u just cant hear them cuz they lower the sound arena is great , with fucking soundproof booths, one of the few tournaments that use them trash noise is there in many events so all of them are shit? it has the best teams it has by far the best format used in csgo for an 8 team event it always delivers amazing matches what more do u fucking want mate

2018-08-15 18:40

Well CS was always more about the actual action for alpha males not the money jk I think prize pools won't rise until Valve starts to treat CS properly (increasing prize pool for a major would be a nice first step)

2018-08-15 12:38

2018-08-16 20:38

Great, up to this point October was an empty month in terms of events so this is a very good announcement! Astralis, NaVi, Faze, Liquid and Fnatic are gonna get the invites btw, mark my words! :D

not sure about fnatic. if invites are sent out now, they won't get it since they use hltv rankings.

2018-08-15 14:32

Teams won't be announced now I'm pretty sure. Wait until this intense period of tournaments (major, ny, sthlm, istansbul etc) is over. Somewhere around then they should come. Inviting teams during the off season would be weird.

2018-08-15 15:50

they might be already decided. they have to do closed qualifier before major

2018-08-15 19:18

I think the current champions deserve an invite, Let's Go Stewie and tarik

2018-08-15 20:21

Not needed, they'd be able to do it after NY.

2018-08-15 20:22

EZ for VP

2018-08-15 12:36

Ez VP

2018-08-15 12:39

Ez4 dignitas

NICEE, Plzz no DELAY

2018-08-15 12:41

+Na`Vi +Astralis

2018-08-15 12:44

best cis tournament

2018-08-15 12:49

hyped

2018-08-15 12:50

its time for virtus.pro guys

2018-08-15 12:52

ez VP

2018-08-15 12:56

big lan tournament's prize pool getting lower is this the end of csgo pro scene?

2018-08-15 12:59

Should be easy for G2 due to recent French performances in Russia

2018-08-15 13:03

They were lucky that it wasnt winter :D

Lmfao this actually made me laugh

2018-08-15 19:49

epicenter hypoOOO

2018-08-15 13:04

Why not Saint-Petersburg;((((

2018-08-15 13:39

4 replies

because Petersburg is gay

2018-08-15 14:01

Moscow is xachi land

well the whole country is

2018-08-15 14:02

Spravedlivo

2018-08-15 14:03

Ez4 Na'Vi

2018-08-15 13:58

ez invite vp

wasnt it 1million last year

It was 500k

2018-08-15 14:29

GONAVI

2018-08-15 14:08

Europe closed qualifier is during the Major?

2018-08-15 15:12

LETS GO!

2018-08-15 15:25

490k$ 490k$ 300k$ rip cs scene

2018-08-15 15:34

No Asian qualified ?

2018-08-15 15:48

Ez 4 VP

2018-08-15 15:53

VP vs SK 1 year ago was fantastic, I hope VP and MIBR will shine in this tournament, because they will get invitations for 100%.

2018-08-15 16:03

really, MIBR and VP in 2018

2018-08-15 17:13

EZ4ENCE

yeah, the #1 tournament with all the production value you can imagine. #ProudToBeBlyat

2018-08-15 16:12

Def. gonna visit

2018-08-15 17:16

Cool.

2018-08-15 17:32

From 500K $ pricepool to 300K lul thats why top4 teams want to skip starladder to get same prizepool on Epicenter LUL

2018-08-15 17:57

epicenter has better production and condition for players, also it's hard for teams to play strallader, they finish major at london then all top teams(except astralis) fly to new york, then 1 week away straladder and after it 1 week and Epicentr, no one want to fly for more then 1 month, after esl new york everyone will fly home and rest before epicentr(but still think navi might take place in sltv cuz close to home)

2018-08-15 18:01

2018-08-15 18:10

expected

2018-08-15 18:24

ez mibr again

2018-08-15 19:16

EZ SK! Oh, wait

one of my favorite events!

2018-08-15 20:18

300K LUL Dead game

2018-08-15 20:20

nice

ez vp invite

2018-08-15 20:26

2018-08-15 20:36

EPICENTER for major!!

2018-08-15 20:40

nice !

2018-08-16 01:54

So wait, you can win the qualifier (cis for example) and still not get an invite/ have a chance at all just because there's a higher ranked team than you? That gives 0 chance to Asian teams and close to 0 chance to cis teams, not much to NA considering Europe rules most of the top ranks... This is fucked up

2018-08-16 16:45