ESL One: Cologne 2017 Kicking Off in a Week’s Time

ESL One: Cologne, one of the biggest CS:GO tournaments this year, will be played from July 7th to July 9th in Cologne, Germany. Over the years, this event has become one of the most popular eSports competitions in the world. Each year, it offers new content for the fans as well as amazing CS:GO matches played by some of the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams in the world.

This year will be no different. Organizers have prepared a rich and diverse program while some of the world’s best teams will be playing in this tournament. However, unlike some of the previous years, this tournament will be without one of the currently best teams in the world, Astralis. The main reason why they decided to skip this tournament is the fact that seven days after ESL One: Cologne 2017 the next CS:GO Major in Krakow will be played. Right now, for this team, Major tournaments are a priority.

ESL One: Cologne – First Round Matches

Organizers have announced that the competition will feature Swiss format and that the seeding for this event has been decided on the basis of CS:GO Global Rankings system. Yesterday, ESL announced the schedule for the first day of the competition and already on the first day we will have several interesting matches. When it comes to the matches of the first round, it needs to be said that they will be organized into two streams at the same time.

The opening match of the main stream will be the duel between Mousesports and Fnatic. Fnatic should not have any big problems as they have been playing very well recently. At the same time, the B-Stream will cover the match between FaZe Clan and Heroic. The second match of the first round on the main stream will be the one between Immortals and Virtus.pro in which Immortals will be looking for an easy win.

The second match of B-Stream will be the matchup between Brazilian SK Gaming and Turkish Space Soldiers. The third match of the first round on B-Stream will be played by TyLoo and G2 Esports.

At the same time the main stream will cover the match between Ninjas in Pyjamas and Cloud9.

The last match of the first round on the main stream will be the one between Natus Vincere and Team Liquid. This will also be one of the most interesting matches of the first round as both teams have been playing in a very similar form recently. The last match on the B-Stream will be the one between North and OpTic Gaming in which OpTic Gaming should be big favorites.

Beyond Counter-Strike

As we have said before, ESL One: Cologne 2017 is one of the most popular eSports tournaments in the world. The event provides additional content for the fans from all over the world. Following the tradition, this year will be no different. Those fans who own Premier or Plus tickets will have the opportunity to witness a football (soccer) match between Virtus.pro and SK Gaming.

This game will be played a day after the end of the final match, on July 10th and it will be a perfect way to end this year’s edition of ESL One: Cologne.