Esports World Cup format unveiled

24-3-2024 13:05

The Riyadh competition will feature a mostly single-elimination format with a peculiar second-chance mechanic.

Spirit are the only team confirmed to play at EWC in July so far

The organizers of the Esports World Cup have announced the format for the summer festival's Counter-Strike 2 competition, which is set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in July.

The tournament will begin with a 14-team best-of-three opening round, from which the winners will move on to the quarter-finals and the losers enter a "resurrection" last-chance stage.

A regional hero qualifier winner will join the seven losing sides in the last-chance stage, and they'll play a single-elimination best-of-one bracket to decide the last quarter-final team.

Spirit are currently the only team to be invited to participate in the Esports World Cup as the winners of IEM Katowice. The winning side of PGL Major Copenhagen will also be invited as well as seven teams coming from the ESL Ranking and six from qualifiers in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Oceania, and a regional qualifier.

Esports World Cup CS qualifiers announced

The organizers are yet to reveal the prizepool of the Esports World Cup and the full dates.

The Esports World Cup is a successor to the Saudi Arabian festival previously known as Gamers8, which featured a Counter-Strike tournament with a $1 million prizepool in August last year, won by Vitality.

It is part of Saudi Vision 2030, a Saudi Arabian government program that aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy. Saudi Arabia’s growing influence in the esports industry — as evidenced by the acquisition of ESL Gaming and FACEIT by Saudi Arabian government-backed Savvy Gaming Group — has raised concerns because of the country’s record of human rights violations.

2024-03-24 13:07

1 reply

Amazing initiative by KSA! LOVE this format and can't wait for this tournament. Will try to attend as well

2024-03-24 15:59

Gamers8 was already a success, can't wait for this one. Good luck to all participants, I will try to come and watch.

5 replies

I hope they increase prize pool for this one. Dota had like 15KK tournament last year and reportedly the next Riyadh Masters will have 50KK.

2024-03-24 13:10

Ig they won't set a prize pool higher than that for Majors. So $1m straight as it was last year is the most probable scenario.

2024-03-24 13:42

I agree g8 was a lot of fun to watch

2024-03-24 13:45

2024-03-24 14:14

+1 Amazing initiative by KSA! LOVE this format and can't wait for this tournament. Will try to attend as well

2024-03-24 16:00

hmmm

Gamers8 but with a different name

2024-03-24 13:08

Stop complaining.

Interesting...

2024-03-24 13:11

Good thing that Striker mentioned the record of human rights violations. Everyone should know about it.

2024-03-24 13:13

35 replies

we literally have a major in china in a few months it's probably time to accept that in Esports, absolutely nobody gives a fuck about these things.

2024-03-24 13:20

18 replies

IEM Dallas is happening too

2024-03-24 13:28

10 replies

2024-03-24 13:36

+1 no one gives a f on which ever sides violated anything. It's just a sport.

2024-03-24 13:40

exactly

2024-03-24 13:43

2024-03-24 13:44

2024-03-24 13:48

2024-03-24 14:22

is IEM Dallas being funded by the US Government?

2024-03-24 14:42

2 replies

they paid for the stadium

2024-03-24 14:49

Funding the actual tournament and teams who participate in the tournament vs funding infrastructure on which the tournament depends are not the same, though obviously it doesn’t mean that there’s no concerns in either case

2024-03-24 20:03

i don't think you have the right to talk about human rights violations when ur from the USA bud

2024-03-24 16:51

6 replies

reading comprehension of a 12 year old.

2024-03-24 16:53

You not mentioning the USA and going for china first is the issue there bud

2024-03-24 16:55

4 replies

because the next valve sponsored event is in china dummy, please use your brain.

2024-03-24 17:05

3 replies

IEM Dalas is on the horizon how come you didnt mention that

2024-03-24 19:32

probably becuz its not sponsored by valve

2024-03-24 19:33

Maybe cuz it isn't a Valve sanctioned event, did you read?

2024-03-25 05:59

Do you think HLTV or Valve care about it? Look at the amount of Russians here at HLTV and Russian players at the major. At the next olympics Russian athletes wont be able to attend the opening ceremony and the Russian flag and national anthem are banned… Valve only cares about money and HLTV only care about farming delusional bettors for their gambling partners.

2024-03-24 14:06

11 replies

if u ban russia then u have to ban israel, palestine, ukraine and usa

2024-03-24 14:15

9 replies

I think the Ukraine situation is different… But for me you can ban all the others, it’s fair, get them blocked

2024-03-24 14:21

8 replies

never mix politics with sports. Its like saying lets ban all portugal players because u invaded south america 500 years ago

2024-03-24 14:24

7 replies

that sounds good to me, ban them

Lifes are way more important than sports. The only way to get to this kind of stupid leaders is unfortunately by making life worst for the citizens of their countries.

2024-03-24 14:55

ok so liechtenstein vs iceland next world cup final 🔥🔥🔥

2024-03-24 16:09

Leftist brain XD

2024-04-18 11:48

The South Americans could be banned as well for being the descendants of those invaders.

2024-03-25 06:21

flag checks

2024-03-25 14:14

What about my flag?

2024-03-25 14:18

You mix 2 things : Players and country Olympic games can be criticized (and they should be), but they tried to differentiate these 2. They allow athlete to participate but not in the name of their country. Apart some bigot people here, no one want russian/israeli/[put the country you want here] players to be banned. And for people that felt offended to no be able to represent a country that kill civilians, you are part of the problem. For ex, when my governement invade libya some years ago, if some sport/esport organization decided to ban my flag, I would have applauded this decision.

2024-03-25 15:02

Striker doesn't understand conflict of interests and its impact on CS teams but he feels the need to bring up human right violations out of no where. Keep that energy for Israeli players and US Air Force sponsored events.

2024-03-24 14:54

Elaborate please.

2024-03-25 14:07

what about record of human rights violations in my country USA? we literally kill people for having black skin We also systematically exclude people from wealth systems due to their skin color. We are also financing genocide. We deserve to be sanctioned.

2024-03-24 16:01

Everyone knows avout it but money is all in this world

2024-03-25 06:05

what the hell

2024-03-24 13:19

Yay asian team

Im so excited to watch this event and find out which team is the best in the world playing in the best city in the world! #ad #VisitSaudi #Ronaldo #AlNassr #Messi #Neymar #EsportsWorldCup

2024-03-24 13:29

Another tournament yippieee

2024-03-24 13:30

cool format tbh

blood money tournament

2024-03-24 13:39

all money nowadays is pretty much dirty… the cover ups in the west are protected by the media owned by the same companies.

you talk too much boycott ESL and FACEIT. mostly ESL that org doing too much tour for CS. boycott CS2 instead by letting ESL running thier tour.

Why arent you then complaining about IEM Chengdu? or IEM Dallas? Or Major Shanghai? or YaLLa tournaments? Or Skyesports slam?

2024-03-24 14:43

because euros can't stand arabs, its an open secret.

2024-03-24 15:25

Yeah... i MAY hardly dislike your culture but atleast im objective lol

2024-03-24 15:49

lets boycot all cs tournaments , starting with the ones held in USA/UK or sponsored by them .

bo1 lower bracket? why tos still use bo1 everyone hates that shit

2024-03-24 13:41

saves time

2024-03-24 13:59

lower bracket shouldnt even exist, its a good format tbh

2024-03-24 14:16

wonder what prize money will be? same as gamers8 or more?

2024-03-24 14:01

And again the format is kinda garbage - but whatever, I don’t even know if I’ll watch it.

2024-03-24 14:02

the format is good what do you mean, who wants to watch lower brackets and ttriple elimination brackets specially in playoffs lmao

Lvl 4 opinion

2024-03-24 14:51

wow gulag in pro cs tournament

2024-03-24 14:13

Riyadh in Summer. GLHF.

2024-03-24 14:23

hahahh

Will we field a team?

2024-03-24 14:36

Interesting format and the location will upset the worst people possible, very cool.

The Jamal Khashoggi World Cup

Says the country responisble for shit ton of assassinations , same country who put Julian Assange behind bars , the irony

2024-03-24 16:50

Trying someone in a court of law vs extra-judicial butchering of a journalist lol nice cope

2024-03-24 20:05

Not big diff if that court of law is literally designed to find you guilty because some people told you to do so

2024-03-24 21:15

if you think that British courts are like that, then you have no idea what you're talking about. the supreme court has spent the last 6 years prosecuting the government for breaking the law

2024-03-25 00:10

Brainwashed John watching too much of a bbc.

2024-04-18 11:52

Polish flag starts talking about the rule of law after PiS spent 9 years undermining the judiciary

2024-04-18 15:32

Why would you speak about something you got no clue about? Bbc is a brainwashing media, thats a fact. And your court is a joke, nothing wrong with facing a fact.

2024-04-18 17:11

Andrzej Duda's alt spotted

2024-04-18 19:40

I bet you're walking with a hand in your underwear like most of young English lads, huh?

2024-04-18 21:41

Will any Chinese team participate? Steel helmet?

Not gonna watch all of that

sounds weird

2024-03-24 15:01

made by an actual idiot

2024-03-24 15:08

"spirit are invited" Then this isnt a world cup, this is just propaganda.

2024-03-24 15:17

lmao what

2024-03-25 06:10

An actual world cup would have countries, not clubs, the world cup is about nations. If anything this is more like a Champions League.

An actual world cup just wouldn't/doesn't work in CS

2024-03-25 06:24

it would

WESG had $1m and yet nobody cared about it and 0 relevant players played it lmao It wouldn't

2024-03-25 06:35

Love sportswashing

2024-03-24 15:36

Real CS World Cup would be cool, but this is not it.

2024-03-24 15:37

Like WESG, only national teams

2024-03-24 16:44

Didnt read but is this the new gamers8?

2024-03-24 16:13

yep

2024-03-25 01:18

For a minute I thought this was written by Spunj.

2024-03-24 16:25

I don't think it would be too hard to do something with national teams considering that no one will see this shit

2024-03-24 17:07

Opening bo3 and resurrection bo1 is actually pretty good.

2024-03-24 18:19

Pretty bad format tbh, some nice ideas but doesn’t look great all together. I’m just happy to watch something new tho tbh.

2024-03-24 18:26

Pog

2024-03-24 19:19

"It is part of Saudi Vision 2030, a Saudi Arabian government program that aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy." Note to the writer, It's called Sportwashing

2024-03-24 21:00

People acting as if there aren't already Saudis hosting tournaments in US and China that are sponsored by the US Air force lol

2024-03-25 06:14

Brainwashed

2024-04-18 11:53

Elaborate

2024-04-18 12:32

If money is the only thing you value in life then go to play these tournaments. eSports was already big in the us before the air force started to give money, it's a recruitment tool, not sportwashing like Saudi does in every sports, football , F1 spending billions so people forgot about their dictatorship, slavery and murders. If North Korea would host a million dollars tournament, would you go ?

2024-03-25 07:45