Esports Championship Series Finals (or ECS Finals) is an upcoming CS:GO event that concludes the European and North American leagues with the same name. A total of $500.000 will be on the line for this competition so we foresee a fierce fight for the title. However, only eight teams will take part in the tournament and most of them aren’t the ones you might expect.
The ECS Finals is scheduled to take place in London between June 6th – 9th.
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Join us at the finale of ECS Season 7 and see!
📆 8th-9th June
🏟️ The SSE Arena, Wembley
🎟 Early bird pricing
🤑 Students 50% offThe Wembley crowd awaits 👉 https://t.co/FYErNtiZne pic.twitter.com/HcHMcR9agq
— ECS (@ecs) April 29, 2019
ECS Finals Format
ECS Finals will take place in two stages. For the Group Stage, the teams will be divided into two groups of four. All initial matches will be Bo1. All following matches will be Bo3. The top two teams from each group advance to the next stage. The Main Event will consist of just three Bo3 matches: two Semifinals and one Grand Final.
ECS Finals Team Analysis
The first six competitors that will take part in ECS Finals are already known. Here’s a brief analysis of each of them so that you may have a better idea of how they stand.
Astralis
Astralis is still the world’s best CS:GO team, although they have started to show signs of weakness over the last month. It’s been an entire year since the Danes conquered the world of Counter-Strike, winning almost every event after that or at least playing in its Grand Final. But now it seems that their rivals have finally caught up with their tactics and strategies and are starting to be successful in countering them.
At the recent BLAST Pro Series Miami, Astralis got defeated by no less than three of the world’s best teams: MIBR, Liquid and FaZe Clan. Against MIBR they suffered their worst defeat in a long time: 2 – 16 on Overpass. FaZe taught them a similar lesson on Dust2 and defeated them 16 – 5.
Stormy Days For Astralis
These results came as a shock for the CS:GO community, as Astralis had dominated the scene with an iron fist for over a year. Could their era have come to an end? It’s not clear yet, simply because BPS events have a weird format. First of all, the matches are Bo1, which creates the possibility for some totally ridiculous upsets. Then there’s the tournament duration: two days. These characteristics create the possibility for an isolated scenario in which an otherwise formidable team has some incident or a poor night’s sleep right before the competition begins and ends up not being able to focus on the games.
One thing that may indicate that something is wrong after all with the world’s best team is how they performed against BIG, in the ESL Pro League Season 9, not long after the BPS tournament. In that match, Astralis struggled to secure a victory and even managed to lose on their best map, Inferno. It was 16 – 10 on Dust2, 17 – 19 on Inferno and 16 – 14 on Overpass, after a massive comeback from Astralis on their CT side.
Astralis Are Still The Favorites To Take The ECS Finals
The clouds are certainly starting to gather over Astralis’ sunny sky of perfect matches and tournament victories and the only reason why we believe that they’re still the favorites going into ECS Finals has to do with the level of competition they will face. Apart from Team Vitality and maybe North, the other teams have little to no chance against the Danish juggernaut. We still have to see who the final two participants will be, but so far, we credit Astralis with the highest chances of winning the ECS Finals title.
Team Vitality
Team Vitality has had an impressive run in 2019 and is now sitting at number nine in the global rankings, which is their highest position yet. The French squad has become the best team in France and also the best one this once great CS:GO nation has had in over a year. The glory days of G2 Esports and Team EnVyUs are long gone.
Top 10 Plays of #ECS7 Week 3 is here, featuring great moments from @NBK, @refrezhCS, @EspiranToCSGO, @steelegabr and more! 🏆
Watch the full video and find out who claimed the #1 spot 📺 https://t.co/PJLN1F9Day pic.twitter.com/lfzIBvz7bk
— ECS (@ecs) April 30, 2019
In 2019, Vitality finished 1st at WePlay! Lock and Load, 9th – 11th at IEM Katowice Major, 5th – 8th at StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7 and 1st at Charleroi Esports 2019. In particular, this last even clearly showed who’s the real boss in France, simply because it had the best teams in the region in attendance.
Going into ECS Finals, we regard Vitality as the second best team after Astralis of the ones that are currently on the list and expect them to do well against everyone else. Their most dangerous adversary apart from Astralis is North.
North
This is a team with tremendous potential and people are still amazed to this day that they haven’t been able to do more with their lineup. In 2019, the only notable results for North were a 1st place at GG.Bet Ice Challenge and a 5th – 8th place at StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7.
In terms of their roster, North made one important change a few months ago, when they replaced their coach. Other than that, they’ve been playing in the same formation for six months and for the most part, the results are lacking.
Going into ECS Finals, we expect North to get a top four result and finish 3rd – 4th. However, if the final two teams that will get revealed soon are top 10 competitors, then their chances of advancing to the Playoffs are minimal.
compLexity Gaming
compLexity has been a mess this year. Everywhere they went, they finished last or close to the bottom. It’s quite clear that their current roster doesn’t have the skills to do more than that. In 2019, coL got the following results: 7th – 8th at iBUYPOWER Masters IV, 12th – 14th at IEM Katowice Major and 4th at ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019.
At ECS Finals, we expect them to be one of the weakest competitors and finish 7th – 8th. There really isn’t much to be expected from their side considering the fact that they don’t have a coach at this point and had to go through a recent roster change.
NRG Esports
Just like North, this is a team with a lot of potential that could explode onto the scene at any moment. In 2019, they even had a brief moment of glory, when they were regarded as a top 5 competitor in the global rankings.
With the addition of tarik, NRG Esports certainly has what it takes to go head to head with most of the world’s best teams. At ECS Finals, they’re pretty much on par with Vitality. This makes them not only worthy of watching but also a potential dark horse in the race.
This season, NRG finished 15th – 16th at IEM Katowice Major and 3rd – 4th at the recent StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7. Even more recently, they defeated FaZe Clan (2 – 0) in a direct match at IEM Sydney 2019.
Going into ECS Finals, we expect NRG Esports to make it to the Semifinals.
FURIA Esports
And finally, we have FURIA Esports. This team has had a few noteworthy results this year, such as a Major participation and a 2nd place at DreamHack Open Rio de Janeiro 2019, but compared to the other opponents, their chances are minimal. They might be able to beat compLexity and North, but that’s about it.
Going into ECS Finals, we expect FURIA to finish 7th – 8th and serve as a punching bag for everyone else.
