ESL Challenger Atlanta set to start

2-10-2024 15:25

The DreamHack festival returns to Georgia for the sixth time since 2017.

SAW is the only top-ten team in attendance

ESL Challenger Atlanta will kick off on October 4-6, as SAW look to win their first-ever LAN tournament outside of Iberian competition.

Portugal's chosen five fly to the States after their top four finish at IEM Cologne, but the world No. 9 will have to deal with a different pressure as clear favorites for the crown.

They will be contested by local heroes M80 (No. 19), who made top eight at ESL Pro League, and top 30 sides BIG, FlyQuest, and BetBoom.

Group A

Group B

The other North American hopeful is Wildcard, who enter weakened by an enforced substitution of Sebastian "⁠fr3nd⁠" Kuśmierz in for Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant.

Swedish AWPer phzy joined Wildcard in July but has yet to secure his visa, even playing officials from Europe on high ping, and Atlanta arrived too soon for that situation to change.

phzy to miss ESL Challenger Atlanta

It's the sixth ESL tournament to take place in Atlanta, after four DreamHack Opens between 2017 and 2021 and ESL Challenger's return to the city in 2023. The city also hosted various ELEAGUE events, including the 2017 Major.

In 2023, Virtus.pro won victory over Apeks with Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev claiming the MVP, but this year's edition will not have an MVP due to a lack of competition between top 10 teams.

Date	Matches
ESL Challenger Atlanta 2024
04/10/2024	BetBoom 16:30 FlyQuest	Match
04/10/2024	SAW 17:50 Rooster	Match
04/10/2024	BIG 19:10 ODDIK	Match
04/10/2024	Wildcard 20:35 M80	Match

Betboom's first lan trophy!

2024-10-02 15:30

1 reply

Hahahhahahahhaha no

2024-10-02 15:47

If I had a nickel for every time the opening matchups of a tournament consisted of two NA teams facing each other, I’d have like four nickels. It’s not a lot but it’s weird that it keeps happening

2024-10-02 15:32

10 replies

They propably want na to win at least one match so they try to force na vs na

2024-10-02 15:43

2 replies

True, but I think wildcard and M80 are strong enough competition for these teams that they both could have won their opening matchups, whatever those may have been.

2024-10-02 15:48

They already forced NA getting a win by putting M80 and WC in the same group. Only 1 team per group goes out 0-2. This kind of NA vs NA doesn't "help" by giving NA a win, its just cruel...

2024-10-03 01:01

Pretty much eu team now anyway

2024-10-02 15:49

5 replies

Yeah, it’s unfortunate that we don’t have a single competitive national team. But that’s technically true for all top teams right now anyway I suppose

2024-10-02 15:51

4 replies

Yeah the death of national CS is tragic

2024-10-02 16:18