Counter-Strike: ESEA-invite S9 playoffs underway

Time: 03:58:38 CET 18:58:38 PST 21:58:38 EST 10:58:38 Seoul 09:58:38 Beijing

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NEWS

By Duncan 'Thorin' Shields

Sep 24, 2011 16:19

The ESEA-i S9 LAN playoffs are underway. The winner out of the 5 teams in attendance will receive $10,000.

The ESEA invite Season 9 playoffs are underway this weekend and there is a $10,000 first prize awaiting the last team standing of the five in attendance. Since this is ESEA de_lite is included in the map pool, though it was only mandatorily used in upper round 1.

The first match took place this morning as

eMazing Gaming faced Full Gaming NA, while all the other teams received BYEs. The latter took the victory in two straight maps, dropping only 10 rounds total.

Matches will be broadcast with commentary via ESEA's twitch.tv channel. There will of course be the usual HLTV servers for those who wish to watch via that method.

ESEA-invite S9 playoffs schedule (all times in CEST)

Saturday, September 24

17:30 Upper Bracket Round 2,

Ultimax Gaming US vs.

backfire (de_mirage, de_train)
20:00 Upper Bracket Round 2,

Evil Geniuses vs. Full Gaming NA (de_mirage, de_train)
22:30 Lower Bracket Round 2 (de_tuscan, de_inferno)
01:00 Lower Bracket Final (de_dust2, de_mirage)
03:30 Upper Bracket Round 3 (de_dust2, de_inferno)

Sunday, September 25

17:00 Consolidation Final (de_train, de_nuke)
19:30 Grand Final (TBD by teams)

Prize purse distribution

1st $10,000
2nd $4,000
3rd $1,750
4th $1,250
5th $1,000

As usual EG are the favourites headed into the LAN playoffs but the organisation who has won the majority of the ESEA-i titles in history comes in with a drastically different lineup than in the past, with fRoD and Storm no longer a part of the team. UMX us live in the same house and recently attended e-Stars Seoul, placing 9th-12th.

backfire have arguably established themself as the USA's second best team, and should be expected to challenge EG for the title. Finally, rounding out the teams is a Full Gaming team who have added a few players and skillwise should be able to match up with the other teams here.

Source: ESEA