iBUYPOWER, in conjunction with ESEA, will be hosting a North American invitational featuring eight teams from February 28th to March 1st. The winning team will take home $4,000 while second place will take home the remaining $1,000. The tournament is online and unfortunately Cloud9 will not take part due to other commitments.
Below is a list of the invited teams by seed. Seedings were determined based upon early ESEA results as well as MLG Aspen and Clutch Con finishes. Recent events such as ESL Qualifiers and additional ESEA matches were not used for the creation of this bracket.
- Team Liquid
- Counter Logic Gaming
- Luminosity Gaming
- Team eLevate
- Denial eSports
- SapphireKelownaDotCom
- affNity
- Ascendancy Gaming
The tournament will be conducted under a single-elimination format and each series will be a best of three. The ESEA map pool for the current ESEA Invite League season will be used. The official map pool as it stands is: Inferno, Dust 2, Nuke, Overpass, Season, Cache, and Mirage.
The veto process is as follows: The higher seeded teams will be considered the Home teams, while the lower seeded teams will be considered Away. Each team will remove a total of two maps each, followed by each team choosing a map to play. The side choice for selected maps will be awarded to the team who did not choose the map, and the third map’s side choice will be awarded to the higher seed.
+ Show Spoiler [Day 1] +
+ Show Spoiler [Day 2] +
Team Liquid vs. Ascendancy (16-4 on Dust 2)
Team Liquid vs. Ascendancy (19-17 on Inferno)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Synergy (affNity) (16-9 on Cache)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Synergy (affNity) (16-7 on Mirage)
Luminosity Gaming vs. SapphireKelownaDotCom (16-4 on Dust 2)
Luminosity Gaming vs. SapphireKelownaDotCom (16-3 on Season)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (14-16 on Mirage)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (16-9 on Cache)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (16-14 on Nuke)
Team Liquid vs. Ascendancy (19-17 on Inferno)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Synergy (affNity) (16-9 on Cache)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Synergy (affNity) (16-7 on Mirage)
Luminosity Gaming vs. SapphireKelownaDotCom (16-4 on Dust 2)
Luminosity Gaming vs. SapphireKelownaDotCom (16-3 on Season)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (14-16 on Mirage)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (16-9 on Cache)
Team eLevate vs. Denial eSports (16-14 on Nuke)
+ Show Spoiler [Day 2] +
Team Liquid vs. Team eLevate (6-16 on Dust 2)
Team Liquid vs. Team eLevate (16-6 on Cache)
Team Liquid vs. Team eLevate (16-1 on Nuke)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (16-7 on Dust 2)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (19-22 on Mirage)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (16-6 on Nuke)
Team Liquid vs. Counter Logic Gaming (2-16 on Cache)
Team Liquid vs. Counter Logic Gaming (11-16 on Mirage)
Team Liquid vs. Team eLevate (16-6 on Cache)
Team Liquid vs. Team eLevate (16-1 on Nuke)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (16-7 on Dust 2)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (19-22 on Mirage)
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Luminosity Gaming (16-6 on Nuke)
Team Liquid vs. Counter Logic Gaming (2-16 on Cache)
Team Liquid vs. Counter Logic Gaming (11-16 on Mirage)