[CS:GO] Tournament Formatting and its Effect on the ESL ESEA Finals

Over the weekend of July 2^nd through July 5^th, ESL and ESEA hosted their much-awaited Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro league finals in Cologne, Germany. The event showcased eight teams, split evenly into groups between European and North American regional divisions. Each division featured the four teams with the best regular season records in their region during the ESL ESEA Pro League’s first season.

Despite huge anticipation from fans of eSports and Counter-Strike, many questions and uncertainties still existed regarding the event’s formatting and process of deciding the tournament schedule. The first part of the tournament was a group stage, with teams placed in ‘A’ and ‘B’ groups to determine seeding and placement for the “playoff” stage and ultimately, the Grand Finals. In the group stage, teams played one another in best-of-one series, which created the issues mentioned by fans and analysts alike.

In professional CS:GO, many teams are known for being particularly talented and experienced with certain maps, often varying based on team and individual play-styles. In a best-of-one scenario, this can cause problems if a bias is theoretically created based on map selections favoring certain teams. Many fans commented on Reddit, Twitter, and other forms of social media that best-of-three or best-of-five match formats provide more balanced playing conditions and reward teams who play consistently on a variety of maps and lessens the likelihood of upsets. Though these criticisms were fairly widespread, many people noted that the tournament’s group stage also featured a double elimination aspect to lessen the potential for unfair upsets. These retorts were exemplified by the fact that number one EU seed Fnatic, seen by many as one of the best teams in the world, lost their first match to CLG, a North American bottom seed.

Despite some criticisms of format, any fan of eSports who had the chance to watch the ESL ESEA Finals would agree that the event was undeniably exciting to watch, as Fnatic won a nail-biting Grand Finals match over the North American Cloud9. Congratulations to all teams involved for their success during this season and to Fnatic for bringing home the championship.

Written by 
Jeff "goliath" Light
goliathxgaming.blogspot.com
Twitter: @goliath_jeff
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