Tournament organizers have announced that after reviewing all of their options when it came to presenting ESL One Cologne 2020, largest CS:GO tournament in the world, that the only way to make it happen was to move to an online tournament with a brand new format to benefit the teams that would be competing from all over the world.
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“After a thorough evaluation we’ve concluded that ESL One Cologne 2020 powered by Intel will transition to an Online Tournament.” the tournament organizer revealed, “The decision was made after extensive research and understanding of global travel regulations and individual national guidelines.”
The biggest shock to come out of the announcement though was that they would be splitting the event into four different regions; Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia, allowing each of the teams to be able to compete from home and not have it be a technical nightmare.
The $500,000 prize pool has also been proportionally split into each of the regions with Asia and Oceania, who are only fielding 4 teams each, fighting for a $20,000 prize compared to the $325,000 for Europe’s top 16.
ESL One Cologne which was originally expected to run from July 6-12, however, it is now scheduled to span from August 18-30 after moving to an online format.
Although the likes of Vitality, BIG, and Evil Geniuses have all been confirmed, there are still plenty of teams to be invited for each of these regional competitions, with more teams expected to receive an invite on July 20.
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