European Champions Cup set to start

The European Champions Cup is about to kick off, with 16 teams set to duke it out for $60,000 in prize money and four spots at the LAN Finals in Malta.

The first edition of the European Champions Cup, hosted by Eden Esports, the Malta-based company that ran the SuperNova CS:GO Malta, will run from September 16-23 and feature a unique – and rather complex – system with six different stages, all of which with best-of-three matches.

The 16 teams have been split into four double-elimination groups in the first stage of the tournament. The top two teams will advance to the Group Playoffs, while the bottom two sides will battle for survival in the Last Chance Groups.

The Group Playoffs will consist of a single round of matches, the winners of which will secure the top four seeds in the Final Stage. The losing sides, on the other hand, will be placed in a double-elimination bracket called Runners-up Playoffs, determining the fifth and sixth seeds in the Final Stage.

BIG will take on AVANGAR in the first match of the tournament

Meanwhile, the eight teams competing in the Last Chance Groups will be split into two double-elimination groups. The group winners will be joined by the two teams eliminated in the Runners-up Playoffs in a single-elimination bracket called Last Chance Playoffs. which will be used to determine the last two teams in the Final Stage.

The Final Stage features a single-elimination bracket but with a couple of twists. In the opening round, the top four seeds will face off for spots at the LAN event and in the last-four stage of the bracket, with the losers going on to face the winner of a match between the bottom seeds. Both the semi-finals and the grand final will be played only for seeding purposes.

The top four teams will secure spots at the Champions Cup, which will be held in Malta in December with an as-yet unannounced separate prize pool.

Below you can find the groups for the first stage of the tournament:

Group A
AVANGAR
Gambit Youngsters
BIG
Illuminar Group B
DreamEaters
OpTic
Movistar Riders
Sprout Group C
HEROIC
FORZE
GamerLegion
Heretics Group D
Syman
Windigo
Spirit
SMASH

StarLadder Major runners-up AVANGAR will open the action against BIG at 14:00 , with Gambit Youngsters – who replaced Tricked on the team list for tournament – facing Illuminar in the next encounter of the day.

The schedule for the first round of matches is the following:

Monday, September 16

14:00 AVANGAR vs. BIG
16:00 Gambit Youngsters vs. Illuminar

Tuesday, September 17

19:00 OpTic vs. Sprout

Wednesday, September 18

19:00 DreamEaters vs. Movistar Riders

Friday, September 20

13:00 HEROIC vs. GamerLegion
16:00 FORZE vs. Heretics

Saturday, September 21

19:00 Syman vs. Spirit

Sunday, September 22

13:00 Windigo vs. SMASH

Eden Esports unveiled over the weekend the talent team for the tournament, headlined by James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks as the host and Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez as one of the two resident analysts. The complete on-air team is as follows:

James Banks - Host

Mathieu "Maniac"Quiquerez- Analyst
Mitch "MitchMan"McBride - Analyst

Harvey "Skriv"Rodgers - Commentator
Adam "Dinko"Hawthorne - Commentator
Alex "Hawka"Hawkins - Commentator
Dean Brown - Commentator

Below you can find the prize distribution for the European Champions Cup:

1-4. - Champions Cup spots
5-6. - $10,500
7-8. - $8,000
9-10. - $4,000
11-12. - $3,500
13-14. - $2,500
15-16. - $1,500

FORZE #20 Dmitriy 'facecrack' AlekseyevAlmaz 'almazer' AsadullinEvgenii 'FL1T' LebedevBogdan 'xsepower' ChernikovAndrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov OpTic #22 René 'cajunb' BorgMathias 'MSL' LauridsenKristian 'k0nfig' WieneckeNikolaj 'niko' KristensenRené 'TeSeS' Madsen DreamEaters #19 Semyon 'kinqie' LisitsynSvyatoslav 'svyat' DovbakhVladislav 'Krad' KravchenkoAnton 'speed4k' TitovIgor 'Forester' Bezotecheskiy BIG #24 Johannes 'tabseN' WodarzTizian 'tiziaN' FeldbuschJohannes 'nex' MagetIsmailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşOwen 'smooya' Butterfield Time is adjusted to your selected timezone James 'BanKs' Banks Age: 29 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 0.00 Maps played: 0 KPR: 0.00 DPR: 0.00 GamerLegion #34 Dennis 'dennis' EdmanAdil 'ScreaM' BenrlitomKevin 'HS' TarnHampus 'hampus' PoserTim 'nawwk' Jonasson Tricked #25 Nicolai 'HUNDEN' PetersenLucas 'Bubzkji' AndersenFrederik 'acoR' GyldstrandRasmus 'sjuush' BeckFredrik 'roeJ' Jørgensen Movistar Riders #53 Rajohn 'EasTor' LinatoAitor 'SOKER' FernándezAlejandro 'alex' MasanetAlejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo CanoRaúl 'DeathZz' Jordán Nieto Spirit #40 Leonid 'chopper' VishnyakovDmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoPavel 'COLDYY1' VeklenkoViktor 'sdy' OrudzhevArtem 'iDISBALANCE' Egorov Heretics #28 David 'Davidp' PrinsLogan 'LOGAN' CortiBryan 'Maka' CandaGaëtan 'JiNKZ' JaminJérémy 'jeyN' Nguyen AVANGAR #6 Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevSanjar 'SANJI' KulievTimur 'buster' TulepovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali Mathieu 'Maniac' Quiquerez Age: 29 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 0.96 Maps played: 830 KPR: 0.66 DPR: 0.67 Syman #23 Maksim 't0rick' ZaikinRamazan 'Ramz1kBO$$' BashizovSanzhar 'neaLaN' IskhakovNicolas 'Keoz' DgusIlya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy SMASH #36 Mikail 'Maikelele' BillJesse 'zehN' LinjalaMartin 'STYKO' StykKevin 'kRYSTAL' AmendPavle 'Maden' Bošković Windigo #227 Kamen 'bubble' KostadinovBuğra 'Calyx' ArkınAli 'hAdji' HaïnoussValentin 'poizon' Vasilev Sprout #33 Florian 'syrsoN' RischeTimo 'Spiidi' RichterDenis 'denis' HowellNils 'k1to' GruhneJosef 'faveN' Baumann Illuminar #49 Paweł 'innocent' MocekPaweł 'reatz' JańczakOskar 'oskarish' StenborowskiMichał 'mono' GabszewiczDaniel 'STOMP' Płomiński HEROIC #17 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferPatrick 'es3tag' HansenJohannes 'b0RUP' BorupMartin 'stavn' LundBenjamin 'blameF' Bremer Gambit Youngsters #32 Timofey 'interz' YakushinAnton 'supra' TšernobaiSergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovDmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovVladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov