CSGO teams at Eleague

ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 Preview

By: Maria Christina De Carlo
Jan 23, 2019

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ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 is an upcoming esports event of moderate importance for the world of Counter-Strike but of great importance to fans and bettors. This is a very unusual competition that brings together only 4 teams. However, all of them have a lot of potential and a decent number of past achievements.

ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 is scheduled to take place in Atlanta, US between January 25th – 27th. The total prize pool is $150.000, which is a lot for an event with just 4 teams in it.

ELEAGUE CSGO Participants and Event Format

ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 will be attended by 4 lineups.

  • Cloud9
  • BIG
  • compLexity Gaming
  • FaZe Clan

These are all very exciting teams with a lot to prove and fresh rosters, in the sense that they’ve made various changes to them in recent weeks or months.

ELEAGUE CSGO Schedule

ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 will be played in a double-elimination bracket format (GSL). All 4 teams start in the Upper Bracket. The matches are Bo3, including the Grand Final. Clean and simple, 6 matches in total.

Team Analysis - CSGO ELEAGUE

Here’s a detailed analysis of the 4 competitors who will be taking part in ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019.

Cloud9

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Precisely one year ago, Cloud9 were winning the ELEAGUE Major in Boston, defeating the mighty FaZe Clan in the Grand Final, in front of their home crowd, in one of the most epic events in the history of CSGO.

The glory was not going to last though and Cloud9 quickly went back to being just an average tier 1 team. They took part in quite a few CSGO events in 2018, but almost every time they finished near to bottom of the table or at least below the top 4. Examples include: Intel Extreme Masters XII World Championship (5th – 6th),  World Electronic Sports Games 2017-2018 (5th – 8th), DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 (5th – 8th), Intel Extreme Masters XIII Sydney (7th – 8th), ESL Pro League Finals (9th – 12th) and Esports Championship Series Season 5 Finals (7th – 8th).

C9 win over FaZe Clan at CSGO ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018

Based on these results, you can clearly see that Cloud9 was a top 10 team in the world in 2018. But it didn’t get better than this. Their main redeeming results were the following: 1st place at ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, 2nd place at WESG 2017 North American Finals, 2nd place at cs_summit 2 and 3rd place at Blast Pro Series: Lisbon 2018.

Cloud9 went through massive roster changes in 2018. As they began to lose their grip in the wake of their totally unexpected victory at the Major, Cloud9 also started to hemorrage players. First, it was Stewie2K who departed and joined MIBR. Then tarik, who joined the same team. Then Skadoodle, who gave up professional CSGO entirely at just 25.

As players were being sold or released, Cloud9 had to bring in new ones. STYKO, FNS and Golden were among them. They all came, played for a while and then became inactive or were sent to other teams. Just in 2018 alone, Cloud9 managed to fail with a variety of lineups. Now they have a new one.

Cloud9’s current roster consists of the following 6 active members: valens (coach), Zellsis, kioShiMa, flusha, RUSH and autimatic. The last 2 players are what’s left of the Cloud9 core that won the ELEAGUE Major a year ago. KioShiMa is a well known, experienced and very strong player. Flusha is also a CSGO legend. But Zellsis is a completely unknwn character at this level of competition.

Going into ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019, Cloud9 have a lot to prove. Not just to themselves but their fans too. And since the competition is taking place on their home soil, we do expect them to play in the Grand Final.

BIG

Like Cloud9, BIG had a modest yet decent season in 2018. The team reached the top 8 in a number of tier 1 tournaments and even had a couple of break-out moments. The highlights include: 12th – 14th at ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, 9th – 12th at WESG 2017-2018, 2nd place at ESL One: Cologne 2018, 5th – 8th at FACEIT Major: London 2018, 5th – 8th at StarSeries & i-League CSGO Season 6, 3rd at cs_summit 3, 9th – 12th at Intel Extreme Masters XIII Chicago, 3rd at SuperNova Malta 2018 and 9th – 12th at ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals.

BIG kakafu at the StarSeries i League CS GO Season 6

As a whole, not a bad year for BIG, who are most likely a top 12 team right now. What makes ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 an important tournament for BIG is quite easy to grasp: like Cloud9, the team has a new roster and they probably want to prove to themselves that they made a good choice. The decision of giving up nex and bringing in XANTARES was seen as an excellent one by a lot of people. It was regarded as a huge upgrade for the whole team. So now is the time to test that hypothesis.

Going into ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019, we expect BIG to finish 3rd or 4th, simply because their opponents are significantly stronger than them, perhaps with the exception of compLexity Gaming.

compLexity Gaming

Last season, coL got a few miraculous results but not much else. For instance, they finished 5th – 8th at FACEIT Major: London 2018, 2nd at MSI Gaming Arena 2018 and 4th at cs_summit 3. But that’s about it.

The element of surprise for compLexity Gaming going into ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019 is their stand-in. This guy is a total legend in CSGO and is known to substantially increase the level of performance of any team that he’s a part of. He’s known as n0thing and is a former Cloud9 player.

Former Cloud9 n0thing standing in for Complexity Gaming

Going into ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019, we expect compLexity Gaming to finish 3rd or 4th, depending on what n0thing can do to help his team.

FaZe Clan

And finally we have FaZe Clan, a former CSGO titan who is now trying to find a way back to glory. FaZe had a better season in 2018 when compared to the other 3 opponents at this event. However, it was peanuts compared to what they had planned for the year and the potential of the roster. But even so, FaZe managed to compete in 5 Grand Finals and win 3 of them. Not bad at all.

The highlighs of their performances are the following: 2nd place at ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, 4th place at StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4, 2nd place at Intel Extreme Masters XII World Championship, 3rd – 4th place at V4 Future Sports Festival Budapest 2018, 1st place at Intel Extreme Masters XIII Sydney (against Astralis!), 3rd – 4th place at ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, 3rd – 4th place at Esports Championship Series Season 5 Finals, 1st place at ESL One: Belo Horizonte 2018, 3rd – 4th place at ESL One: Cologne 2018, 1st place at EPICENTER 2018 and 3rd – 4th place at Intel Extreme Masters XIII Chicago.

These results are absolutely fabulous when we compare them to what the other opponents achieved in 2018. But FaZe Clan weren’t happy apparently so they temporarily replaced their captain, karrigan, with AdreN, a former Gambit Esports player. This makes them a volatile team at the moment but still, they’re at least twice as strong as the next best team at ELEAGUE CSGO Invitational 2019.