EPTThis weekend, Clutch Con will be hosting a $15,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Invitational in Denver, Colorado. The event will feature many top teams from North America, including
Counter Logic Gaming, Cloud9 and our very own Team Liquid. After enjoying a week of snowboarding, 
Fnatic and 
KaBuM.TD will be heading to Denver to represent the international scene. Major League Gaming will be working together with CEVO once again to provide the official broadcasts, so be sure to expect top-notch coverage similar to the X Games last weekend.Though the Swedes will be the big favorites coming into this tournament, the real story will be the clash of the top North American teams. This will be the perfect time for the domestic teams to face off and determine the current top team in the region. Spearheading this battle will be the big three mentioned above. Two female teams,
Karma and UBINITED, who both performed well at the ESWC 2014 female tournament will also be competing at the event. Rounding out the rest of the competitors will be the American teams Denial, eLevate, Torqued, Mythic, WinOut, SOURCEry, and HellsGamers. From the online qualifiers, we will have 
SapphireKelownaDotCom and Paradox. Torqued were forced to make a last-minute addition of Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham to their roster following recent events in order to compete in the tournament.Clutch Con will follow a similar format to the X Games and will be using Valve's Active Duty map pool with the exception of Season replacing Cobblestone. The event will begin with a best-of-one round robin, followed by a best-of-three single-elimination bracket. Contrary to the X Games, the group stage map will be decided by a four-map veto system where the teams ban two maps each, leaving one of three remaining maps to be randomly selected. The volatile nature of best of ones and the random map choice may lead to another tournament full of unexpected upsets.
<div class="bold">Group A</div><div class="blockquote">
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Counter Logic Gaming Paradox Fnatic HellsGamersGroup A should be an easy group for CLG and Fnatic. Both teams have experience playing against the best in the world, so local North American competition should not be much of a problem. However, the lack of information Fnatic has on these lower-tier teams may provide the Americans with a small, though unlikely, chance for an upset. Expect this group to be a fight between CLG and Fnatic for the group’s top position, but don’t count out Paradox and HellsGamers considering the potential for upsets.
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<div class="bold">Group B</div><div class="blockquote">
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Team Karma Team Liquid Cloud9 SapphireKelownaDotComThis will be one of the tougher groups in this tournament. Liquid and Cloud9 are the two favored teams, though SKDC is quite capable of pulling an upset. Team Karma, one of the two female teams, will be hard-pressed to beat the trio of invite-level teams. It will be an interesting watch to see how they stack up to two of the top domestic teams.
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<div class="bold">Group C</div><div class="blockquote">
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UBINITED Mythic WinOut.NET Torqued This will be one of the harder groups to predict. Mythic has a double AWP setup that they often employ, while WinOut.NET and UBINITED have potentially strong riflers. Torqued, on paper, have some of the best talent in the group, especially with the recent additions,
Derek “desi” Branchen and Skadoodle, joining the fold. However, will their team chemistry, or lack thereof, be enough for them to top Group C?</div>
<div class="bold">Group D</div><div class="blockquote">
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KaBuM.TD Denial Esports eLevate SOURCEry Group D features the Brazilians playing against two invite-level teams and a relatively unknown team, SOURCEry, who replaced the former
iBUYPOWER squad at a moment’s notice. Given the Brazilians’ performance last weekend at Aspen, they should have a strong showing against the rest of the group, but Denial and eLevate have exceptional players and years of experience. SOURCEry are the big underdogs in this group and are not expected to advance, but it’s difficult to predict what may happen this weekend.</div>
Look forward to watching some more amazing North American Counter-Strike these next few days!
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Writer: Amazingxkcd
Editors: Nagisama, Souma
Graphics: InsidiA
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