The ninth series of the Challenge Cup has been announced and will boast a $3,000 prize pool, $7,000 down from the previous event. Unlike the ICSC 8 however, the whole tournament will this time take place online, from August 29th to early October, and will be formatted as best-of-three maps, double elimination tournament.

Six teams so far have confirmed that they will participate in the tournament with HLTV.org reporting that Ukraine's Natus Vincere are also expected to confirm their participation in the near future. Amongst the confirmed teams are recently crowned e-Stars Seoul 2011 champions Frag eXecutors , Lions swe and TCM-Gaming

Intel Challenge Cup 9 confirmed teams:



Prize purse distribution:



Teams that would like to participate in the tournament can email p.jakubovsky@cyberarena.tv.

Source: HLTV.org