CIS & Europe Minors viewer's guide

14-1-2019 23:00

With both the CIS and the European Minors set to start on Wednesday, we have put together a viewer's guide with all the information you need regarding the events.

The Polish city of Katowice will host all four regional Minors leading to the first Major of 2019, with the CIS and the Europe tournaments kicking off January 16.

As usual, teams will battle it out for two spots at the Major and their share of a $50,000 prize pool, but, this time around, the third-placed squads will get another chance to earn a ticket to the prestigious event as they will advance to the play-in tournament.

IEM Katowice 2019 will be the third Major in the Polish city

The Minors will kick off with a GSL group stage, with best-of-one opening matches and best-of-three series thereafter. The top two teams from both groups will then advance to the double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs.

The CIS Minor, which features teams such as Gambit, AVANGAR and Runtime, is set to start at 10:00 on Wednesday, with the group draw looking as follows:

Group A

Group B

Below you can find the full schedule:

Wednesday, January 16
10:00 - Nemiga vs. Spirit | BO1
10:00 - Gambit vs. Syman | BO1
11:10 - Runtime vs. Winstrike | BO1
11:10 - AVANGAR vs. pro100 | BO1
12:20 - Group A winners' match | BO3
12:20 - Group B winners' match | BO3

Thursday, January 17
10:00 - Group A elimination match | BO3
10:00 - Group B elimination match | BO3
13:30 - Group A decider | BO3
13:30 - Group B decider | BO3

Friday, January 18
10:00 - Upper bracket semi-final #1 | BO3
13:30 - Upper bracket semi-final #2 | BO3

Saturday, January 19
10:00 - Lower bracket final | BO3
13:30 - Upper bracket final | BO3

Sunday, January 20
13:30 - Consolidation Final | BO3

As for the Europe Minor, headlined by the current No.4 team in the world, MOUZ, the groups look as follows:

Group A

Group B

You can find the full schedule for the Europe Minor below:

Wednesday, January 16
16:05 - Vitality vs. OpTic | BO1
16:05 - MOUZ vs. Valiance | BO1
17:15 - ex-Space Soldiers vs. ENCE | BO1
17:15 - North vs. Windigo | BO1
18:25 - Group A winners' match | BO3
18:25 - Group B winners' match | BO3

Thursday, January 17
17:15 - Group A elimination match | BO3
17:15 - Group B elimination match | BO3
20:45 - Group A decider | BO3
20:45 - Group B decider | BO3

Friday, January 18
17:15 - Upper bracket semi-final #1 | BO3
20:45 - Upper bracket semi-final #2 | BO3

Saturday, January 19
17:15 - Lower bracket final | BO3
20:45 - Upper bracket final | BO3

Sunday, January 20
17:15 - Consolidation Final | BO3

The on-air team for the Minors features a variety of familiar faces, including desk hosts Tres "stunna" Saranthus and James Banks. Sudhen "Bleh" Wahengbam, Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill, Jacob "Pimp" Winneche and Joona "natu" Leppänen will be acting as analysts in Katowice, while three pairs of commentators will be responsible for narrating the matches, as you can find below.

Tres "stunna" Saranthus - Desk Host
James Banks - Desk Host

Sudhen "Bleh" Wahengbam – Analyst
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill – Analyst
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche – Analyst
Joona "natu" Leppänen - Analyst

Hugo Byron – Commentator
Harry "JustHarry" Russell – Commentator
Conner "Scrawny" Girvan – Commentator
Mohan "Launders" Govindasamy – Commentator
Jason Kaplan – Commentator
Tom "Tombizz" Bissmire - Commentator

Finally, here is how the prize pool will be distributed in each Minor:

1. $30,000 + spot in New Challengers Stage
2. $15,000 + spot in New Challengers Stage
3. $5,000 + spot in Minor's Play-In tournament

interesting

2019-01-14 23:02

24 replies

?ohw

2019-01-14 23:03

13 replies

Bro, its me

2019-01-14 23:08

12 replies

Oh hello there

2019-01-14 23:09

11 replies

Hey men))

6 replies

How doing))

5 replies

great and you men))

4 replies

CIS minors should be extinct.

2019-01-14 23:14

3 replies

Just like your comment!

2019-01-15 08:41

2019-01-15 10:03

EZ 4 ence boyz lets get it

2019-01-15 10:25

Esketit

2019-01-15 10:32

lets go😎

2019-01-15 12:30

Vamos ENCE

2019-01-15 12:36

CIS minor should be extinct.

9 replies

+1 they should merge with europe minor

2019-01-14 23:15

8 replies

2019-01-14 23:16

1 reply

2019-01-15 03:01

Merge with Asian minor is more reasonable

2019-01-15 04:22

and play online games with 100ping?

2019-01-15 07:01

I was don’t know this details

2019-01-15 11:41

2 replies

Me neither vodka blyat

2019-01-15 12:14

Ez4ence

2019-01-15 12:56

2019-01-15 09:35

2nd Edit : Fvck nt. Good luck to all the teams anyway.

2019-01-14 23:04

lolz third

#1 got deleted hahaha

still #3

2019-01-14 23:06

Just congratulate me. This is the close I can get haha

2019-01-14 23:43

congratulations on being #3 mr. JackReacher :)

2019-01-15 14:26

COME ON NORTH

2019-01-15 10:07

WP! ;-)

2019-01-18 03:57

Damn

Yes damn. What is bleh doing, worst analyst ever. No humor, no fashion. Dog shain outside hes shirt.......

2019-01-15 05:41

stfu thorin lover ..he is good at his job

2019-01-15 11:54

Thorin and bleh, pretty sure they have the same letter combination.

2019-01-15 13:06

Mibr sucks lul

Lmao

2019-01-15 00:06

lol

nice

Zywoo will qualify Vitality on his own

Ez4ENCE and Mouz

gl avangar

2019-01-14 23:07

EZ4ENCE

EASY FOR KVIK AND KALINKA

2019-01-14 23:12

I'm cheering for Ence and Valiance

The best minors

IEM Katowice will be 4 major in Poland not 3 bad text under img

2019-01-14 23:13

“IEM Katowice 2019 will be the third Major in the Polish city” Katowice =/= Krakow

2019-01-14 23:18

3rd major in THE Polish city, not in A Polish city. Meaning 3rd Major to take place in Katowice.

2019-01-14 23:31

Lul ty idk about diffrence the and a

2019-01-15 14:35

Group A in the europe seems pretty strong compared to Group b

2019-01-14 23:17

Do u think next major could be during summer?

2019-01-14 23:21

Why not?

2019-01-14 23:48

Well last major was during the autumn

2019-01-15 01:51

HLTV be like: -80% of potential viewers +pimp

god i hope optic does something here. Atleast if they dont better chances of karrigan pick up.

2019-01-14 23:27

Let's go syman I'm really wanted to see idisbaLance on lan

2019-01-14 23:36

he was playing on lan 2 weeks ago, bad af

2019-01-14 23:40

ez 4 my boy poEZon

Finaly some good stuff to watch (._.)_b

2019-01-14 23:45

CIS with their tier 3 teams ffs

2019-01-14 23:50

EZ4POIZON

2019-01-14 23:52

Dang, CIS way too early for me. Glad I'll catch EU though. Going to be tight.

2019-01-15 00:00

CIS = all shit teams lol except for gambit maybe

2019-01-15 00:07

Depends on the form of the teams but imo Spirit/AVANGAR > Gambit/pro100/Winstrike > rest.

2019-01-15 00:42

yeah i can agree with that actually

Spirit/Avangar>EU minor

2019-01-15 02:40

I thinks not ruskiboi

2019-01-15 05:36

Delusional

2019-01-15 06:31

Let's go mouz

2019-01-15 00:17

Finally some tournaments after 4 months without cs

2019-01-15 00:20

stunna LUL prepare for the cringe

2019-01-15 00:26

ez for iDISBALANCE and Syman And EZ4ENCE

2019-01-15 01:05

I think he will choke on the minor

2019-01-15 01:08

Yes he will be banned :D

2019-01-15 01:09

>turks still mad because of a lost match XD

2019-01-15 05:29

It doesn't change anything in my life so don't care about :) It is silly to see him in Minor

2019-01-15 11:13

the group A of eu minor is fucking insane

2019-01-15 02:07

where are the stickers?

2019-01-15 02:18

2019-01-15 03:18

2019-01-15 10:09

ez money 4 mouz

2019-01-15 03:40

nice yo

2019-01-15 03:55

CIS group B unbelievably easy for AVANGAR

2019-01-15 04:28

Where is G2???

2019-01-15 04:29

only 2 spots? it's going to be mouz + danish team

2019-01-15 05:07

windi go home OMEGALUL

2019-01-15 12:02

windigo - mausesports - 2-0 (check it ;) ) North - Windigo - 3:2 (but windigo has won more rounds)

2019-01-15 12:04

very good, best of luck

2019-01-15 14:54

Is there still the Facebook contract? Does anyone know if it's going to be on twitch.

2019-01-15 05:18

Fb in 2019 fok em. Game ruiners

2019-01-15 07:00

God I hate whoever thought this was a good idea.

2019-01-15 13:23

Only ESL One and ESL Pro League are streamed on facebook, pretty sure stream will be even on steam.tv

2019-01-15 08:14

Why are they actually making ence play?? Just give them a spot at the major ffs

2019-01-15 06:25

I dont get it how cis minor has 2 spots for major. I would give 4 spots to eu

2019-01-15 06:33

7 replies

2019-01-15 13:29

maybe cuz teams like AVANGAR, Gambit, Spirit play there ofc EU needs more slots but CIS is definitely not the weakest region

2019-01-15 14:40

avangar is decent but gambot / spirit doesnt have any chances on major so basically wasted spots

2019-01-15 15:22

spirit already did damage on previous major and we know gambit have a great potential

2019-01-15 15:27

i guess teams like vitality, optic and valiance would go higher than all cis minor teams. but they dont have chances to major because eu minor is so damn hard

2019-01-15 15:32

Im not sure about that, for example spirit beat both vitality and optic recently to qualify to big event EU is the strongest region but CIS isnt the weakest one, u just should check asia/na minor teams

2019-01-15 15:39

i think na>cis and on lan spirit has no chance against vitality/optic and valiance is much more interesting than cis teams because it has new raising stars like hunter and ottond

2019-01-15 15:47

CIS Minor - spawning horrific teams that get a few fluke wins and then fall into oblivion and disband - exactly the kind of tournament the scene needs and deserves OmegaLuuuuuuuL

2019-01-15 06:45