EPICENTER: Moscow results

Moscow hosted a major Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in VTB Ice Hall sports arena from October 17th to 23rd. The best teams of the world took part in the tournament to fight for a $500 000 prize pool.

While six teams were invited directly, others needed to make it through Europe and CIS closed qualifiers, with one of the qualifier participants being a winner of open qualifiers.

The winners of CIS qualifiers were Tengri, the winners of European qualifiers – Wizards. None of these teams managed to make it through the closed qualifiers. That way, Team Dignitas, and HellRaisers become the winners of closed qualifiers and participants of the main event.

The final list of participants looked as follows: Fnatic, G2 Esports, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, SK Gaming, Virtus.pro, HellRaisers, Team Dignitas.

The group stage featured two groups of 4 teams with “round-robin” format and best-of-2 matches. One team from each group with the worst result leaves the tournament after the group stage. This was the fate of Ninjas in Pyjamas and one of the qualifier’s winners – HellRaisers.

Interestingly enough, all matches within the group A were tied. However, taking into account the number of rounds won by a team, NiP showed the worse result which ended in elimination from the tournament.

The playoff stage had the single-elimination format, meaning that a team is eliminated after a single loss in a BO3 match. Teams that placed 1st in groups start in the second round of playoffs. G2 Esports and Ftanic were eliminated in the first round, SK Gaming, and Natus Vincere – in the second one.

Being a winner of European closed qualifiers, Team Dignitas placed 3rd in their group and won 3 BO3 series in a row, facing Virtus.pro in the finals. Ultimately, Team Dignitas outplay Virtus.pro on Cobblestone and Mirage and become the winner of EPICENTER: Moscow 2016, taking home $250 000. The title of an MVP of the tournament is justly rewarded to k0nfig.

Tournament results:

1. Team Dignitas – $250000
2. Virtus.pro – $100000
3-4. NaVi, SK – $40000
5-8. HR, Fnatic, NiP, G2 Esports – $15000