Venue Spodek Arena Teams 16 | Location Katowice, Poland Grand Final score 2–0 | |
Dates March 13, 2014 (2014-03-13) – March 16, 2014 (2014-03-16) Website dreamhack.se/dhw13/esport/csgo/ | ||
Electronic Sports League Major Series One Katowice 2014, known as EMS One Katowice 2014 for short, was a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major that was held from March 13–16, 2014 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It was organized by Electronic Sports League and sponsored by the game's developers Valve Corporation. The tournament had a total prize pool of US$250,000. Virtus.pro was the winner of the event after beating Ninjas in Pyjamas in the finals.
Contents
EMS One Katowice was livestreamed on twitch.tv had a peak of over 250,000 concurrent viewers. The commentators and casters of the event were Sean Charles (Host), Lauren "Pansy" Scott (Commentator), Jason Kaplan (Commentator), Stuart "TosspoT" Saw (Commentator), Scott "SirScoots" Smith (Analyst), Duncan "Thorin" Shields (Analyst), Joshua "steel" Nissan (Observer).
The first, round-robin group stage consisted of 16 teams in four groups. For the next stage the top two teams in each group were then seeded into a single-elimination bracket.
Format
The top 8 teams of the 2013 DreamHack Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Championship qualified as Legends. 2 teams were directly invited to participate in the tournament, while the remaining 6 teams qualified through an online qualifier that consisted of sixteen teams.
Teams will be split up into four groups. All group matches are best of a. The highest seed will play the lowest seed in each group and the second and third seeds will play against each other. The winner of those two matches will play to determine which team moves on to the Playoffs; the loser of that match will play another match against the winner of the two losing teams. The loser of the lower match is eliminated from the tournament. The last two teams will play each other and the winner of that match moves on to the playoffs.
The playoffs bracket consists of eight teams, two from each group. All of these matches are a best of three, single elimination format. Teams advance in the bracket until a winner is decided.
Broadcast Talent
Host
Analysts
Commentators
Observer
Teams
1 Astana Dragons team moved to HellRaisers.
2 Team Dignitas receives Copenhagen Wolves' Legend spot by signing FeTiSh, Xyp9x and device.
3 Team LDLC.com receives Recursive eSports' Legend spot by signing Happy, Uzzziii and Maniac.
4 VeryGames team moved to Titan.
Format
The sixteen teams were divided into four groups, with the two first match winners playing off against each other to find the groups top seed for the knockout stages. The losers of the first match played off in a knockout match, with the winner facing the loser of the winner's match to find the second seed. With eight teams remaining, the competition reached the quarter final stage, with all knockout matches hereon played in a best-of-three format.