Review of ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019

In general, the the tournament was not so outstanding. Only four teams took part in it and the prize pool of the event consisted of $150,000. As it had been expected, the Europeans from FaZe Clan became the winners, despite the fact that they played with a substitute player. As the number of participants was small, the championship started with the playoff stage which is quite unusual for CS:GO competitions.

FaZe Clan

As it has been noted, FaZe approached the tournament as the main favorite. The players from this team managed to satisfy the audience's expectations and to show why they were considered to be the favorite of the championship. At the first match, FaZe Clan performed against Cloud9 awfully and got to the lower bracket. There they managed to win over such opponents as compLexity Gaming and BIG by the score of 2-0 and 2-1, respectively. Getting to the grand final against C9, FaZe were able to win the rematch over the Americans and became the owners of the main money prize of $80,000. At the moment the Europeans don't have a constant fifth player. As for this tournament, the Kazakh esportsman, Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev was substituting for the player and rose the trophy together with FaZe. It's unknown yet if he will continue playing for this European clan.

Cloud9

The American team managed to satisfy the expectations of their fans partially. Cloud9 showed a good performance at the tournament. At the first match they won over the main favorite that is FaZe by the score of 2-0 and at the nest battle they got a defeated BIG with the same score. At the grand final C9 lost 1-2 having no chance to show a good opposition to their European opponents. Nevertheless, C9's performance couldn't be named as a failure. In the end, the team made it to the final and got the second place which brought them $40,000 as a money prize. The situation in their roster is similar to FaZe Clan. C9 also doesn't have a permanent fifth player. Now ex-representative of Swole Patrol Jordan ‘Zellsis’ Montemurro is having a probation period in the team.

BIG

As for the expectations for this team, there were different opinions: some people thought that they were favorites of the tournament while the other didn't believe in the European team. We can understand both of these opinions. On the one hand, BIG hold the 13 place in the list of the best CS:GO teams according to HLTV and they didn't look weak in comparison to the other participants, so they had a chance to win, but on the other hand BIG hadn't been seen on the professional stage for a long time and we didn't know what we should expect from them. It's also worth noting that recently the roster of BIG has been changed. The management of the team released nex from his duties as a player, making him inactive, while the place of Johannes Maget has been taken by a Turkish esportsman, Ismailcan ‘XANTARES’ Dortkardes. In the end, BIG didn't satisfy the expectations of those who believe in the win of this collective. BIG took the 3 place, which is a good result. We think that this team could have performed better, but due to the fact that XANTARES has recently joined the team and the players haven't had enough time to achieve a good teamwork, so this result is logical and fair for BIG. Their efforts brought BIG a money reward of $20,000.

compLexity Gaming

The team that performed with the worst results is compLexity Gaming for sure. At the first match, they lost 0-2 against BIG. Getting to the lower bracket, they got a difficult destiny — they had to play with FaZe Clan. On the first map, the Americans played pretty well, taking 12 rounds, but on the second map they were not able to show any good result. FaZe won cache by the score of 16-2, and the game ended up by the score of 2-0. In the end, compLexity Gaming were the first to finish performing at the tournament, holding the fourth position in the bracket. Their participation in ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 brought a money prize of $10,000 to the Americans.