Cover Image Courtesy: Intel Extreme Masters
Yesterday, ESL announced the groups for all the minors that are scheduled to take place in the month of January. The CIS and EU Minors will be the first two minors to take place from 16th-20th January while the Americas and Asia minors will follow up shortly running from 22nd-26th January.
The top two teams from each minor will be qualifying for the New Challengers Stage, facing off against the Returning Challengers from the FACEIT Major 2018. While the third-placed teams from each minor will move on to the Minors’ Play-In, through which the top two teams will qualify for the New Challengers Stage.
The Regional Minors will be following a Double Elimination Format with the Opening Matches being a BO1 while all the following match-ups are a BO3.
Top two teams from each group will qualify onto the Playoffs which will undergo a BO3, Double Elimination Format.
A prize pool of $50,000 will be split amongst the top three teams as follows:
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1st - $30,000
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2nd - $15,000
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3rd - $5,000
Following are the First round match-ups for the various Regional Minors:
CIS Minor
Group – A
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Gambit vs Syman
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Nemiga vs Spirit
Group – B
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AVANGAR vs Pro100
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Runtime vs Winstrike
EU Minor
Group – A
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Mousesports vs Valiance
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VItality vs OpTic
Group – B
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North vs Windigo
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Ex-Space Soldiers vs ENCE
Americas Minor
Group – A
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NRG vs Imperial
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Bravado vs INTZ
Group – B
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Envy vs TeamOne
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FURIA vs eUnited
Asia Minor
Group – A
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Renegades vs Aequus
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CyberZen vs Grayhound
Group – B
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ViCi vs GOSU
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Beyond vs MVP PK