EPTThis Saturday, February 14th will signal the start of the LAN segments of ESL One Katowice, the year's first Valve-sponsored $250,000 tournament. For the first time ever, a major tournament in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will feature an offline qualifier to determine the final eight teams to advance to the main event.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GI4mVY6.png)
The venue will be the Angelo Hotel in Katowice, Poland.
16 teams will face off for the opportunity to battle the Legends in March for their share of the prize pool, and half will be sent home with only hopes for the next major accompanying them. Seven of the teams were invited, with the other nine having to claw their way through a series of online qualifiers to secure their ticket to Katowice. One extra spot was up for grabs as 
Epsilon was disqualified following the bans of three of their players due to match fixing, and a second qualifier spot was handed over as a consequence of 
The_WinneR's bans.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/whEV4FU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zT0mNxM.png)
The standard Valve map pool will be used. With Cobblestone recently receiving massive changes, it will be interesting to see if the map ends up being played at all.
The qualifier will be conducted under a double-elimination best-of-one format, with each group concluding with two decider matches to determine the final two to advance. The first two teams to notch two wins will proceed to the main event, while the four teams with only one loss will be the ones facing off in the decider matches.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IUUyM8R.png)
Titan 
LGB eSports 
Team Liquid 
Gamers2 Counter Logic Gaming 
Flipsid3 Tactics Copenhagen Wolves 
PiTER-ONLINEGroup B:
Cloud9 
Team Dignitas 
3DMAX 
KaBuM.TD mousesports 
Vox Eminor ESC Gaming INSHOCK![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yfo5H7q.png)
Group A
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bq5Qj0e.png)
Group A can be considered the Group of Death, with only one real favorite and one apparent underdog. Titan will be primed to top the group after back-to-back top-two performances at ASUS ROG and IOS Pantamera, but the volatile nature of best of ones may pave the way for an upset as on their heels will be a string of Tier 2 teams capable of making a splash. PiTER-ONLINE is the lone dark horse after qualifying through an eight-team CIS qualifier that saw Flipsid3 knocked out after their first match. According to our staff, LGB is also looking like a great contender to advance.
The other staff favorites are Gamers2 and, of course, Team Liquid, but Flipsid3 is more than capable of clinching an early spot even with their star AWPer on the sidelines. Counter Logic Gaming, a team with extremely high highs and low lows, could easily find themselves in the main event as well. The most surprising observation of this group's predictions is the apparent lack of American patriotism however, with only one person having both Liquid and CLG advancing. Bless you, LMP.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lreciZl.png)
The two heavy favorites to make it out of Group B are Cloud9 and Dignitas. Both teams have players with a breadth of experience on the big stage and are the frontrunners to challenge the Legends once again. Following suit is the Finnish squad of 3DMAX who recently displayed a valiant performance at ASUS ROG in front of their home crowd. Their star player, Aleksi "allu" Jalli, will be looking to put his stamp on the world, and to do that he will first have to lead his team to the main event.
KaBuM, after impressive showings on Mirage against Cloud9 and Fnatic, will go into the qualifier slightly handicapped as their opponents are certain to ban the map from play. After bootcamping in Colorado following the conclusion of Clutch Con, the Brazilians may have honed their strategies on other maps and will be looking to take the last spot over mousesports and ESC Gaming. The most interesting team of this group may be the Australians, however, as they have shown small sparks before in the majors and the opportunity to see them play is rare for international fans. INSHOCK, after qualifying through the Polish regional qualifier, will be the underdog in a similar fashion to PiTER-ONLINE, but the team shows a better chance of advancing with a less difficult group and the experienced players Mariusz "Loord" Cybulski and Michał "MICHU" Müller at the helm.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xTpvxAC.png)
| Time | Saturday (Group A) | Sunday (Group B) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00 GMT (+00:00) | Titan vs PiTER & Gamers2 vs CLG | Cloud9 vs INSHOCK & KaBuM.TD vs Mouz |
| ~11:30 GMT (+00:00) | Winners Match 1 | Winners Match 1 |
| ~12:45 GMT (+00:00) | Elimination Match 1 | Elimination Match 1 |
| ~14:00 GMT (+00:00) | LGB eSports vs CPH Wolves | 3DMAX vs Vox Eminor |
| ~15:30 GMT (+00:00) | Liquid vs Flipsid3 | Dignitas vs ESC Gaming |
| ~16:45 GMT (+00:00) | Winners Match 2 & Elimination Match 2 | Winners Match 2 & Elimination Match 2 |
| ~18:15 GMT (+00:00) | Decider Match 1 | Decider Match 1 |
| ~19:30 GMT (+00:00) | Decider Match 2 | Decider Match 2 |
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wFCARKf.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/B7QcmHK.png)
+ Show Spoiler [Group A] +
CLG 16 ( Cache ) 14 Gamers2 Titan 28 ( Cache ) 24 PITER CLG 16 ( Dust2 ) 14 Titan Gamers2 17 ( Mirage ) 19 PITER LGB 16 ( Inferno ) 8 CPH Wolves Team Liquid 14 ( Mirage ) 16 Flipsid3 LGB 16 ( Inferno ) 11 Flipsid3 Team Liquid 10 ( Mirage ) 16 CPH Wolves PiTER 3 ( Mirage ) 16 Flipsid3 Titan 16 ( Nuke ) 4 CPH Wolves+ Show Spoiler [Group B] +
Cloud9 16 ( Inferno ) 2 INSHOCK KaBuM.TD 10 ( Dust2 ) 16 Mousesports Cloud9 16 ( Dust2 ) 14 Mousesports INSHOCK 11 ( Nuke ) 16 KaBuM.TD 3DMAX 11 ( Mirage ) 16 Vox Eminor Dignitas 16 ( Mirage ) 11 ESC Vox Eminor 16 ( Inferno ) 13 Dignitas 3DMAX 16 ( Mirage ) 8 ESC KaBuM.TD 16 ( Inferno ) 3 Dignitas Mousesports 8 ( Cache ) 16 3DMAX
