Teams 16 teams | ||
Sport Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Location Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Dates August 14, 2015–August 18, 2015 Administrator(s) Electronic Sports League (ESL) Tournament format(s) GSL group stage format (4 groups with 4 teams)
Eight team single-elimination playoff | ||
ESL One Cologne 2015 was a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major that was held from August 14-18, 2015 at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne. It was organized by Electronic Sports League. The Cologne event was the first ESL tournament that required competitors to take drug tests, which all came up negative. The tournament had a total prize pool of $250,000 USD. The online livestream was viewed by around 27 million viewers with a peak of 1.3 million concurrent viewers.
Contents
There were qualifiers for the event.
Fnatic was the winner of the event after beating Team EnVyUs 16-7 in the finals on Cobblestone (de_cbble). Fnatic's Freddy "KRiMZ" Johansson scored a quad-kill in the finals against EnVyUs to help win the tournament.
Format
The top eight teams of the ESL One Katowice 2015 qualified as Legends. In addition, four team from the European Qualifier, two teams from the Asian qualifier, and two teams from the North American qualifier were the "Challengers" for the tournament.
Teams will be split up into four groups. All group matches are best of 1. 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 this match receives a "high seed" in the second group stage. The two losers from the first matches play as the "low seeds" in the second group stage, while the high seed gets a bye. The winner between the two losing teams play against the high seed. The winner of that match qualifies for the Playoffs. This format is also known as the GSL Group Format.
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.
Qualifiers
Four teams from the European Qualifier, two teams from the Asian Qualifier, and two teams from the North American Qualifier moved on to the major.
16 European teams were placed in to separate brackets. Two teams from each bracket move on to the major. In the Asian and North American Qualifiers, 8 teams were placed in two groups and were played out like in previous majors' group stages. The top two move on to a four team bracket. The winners of the matches move on to the major.
Broadcast Talent
Hosts
Analysts
Commentators
Observers
Others
Teams
Changes were made prior to the major.
Keyd Stars drop Caio "zqk" Fonseca in favor of Marcelo "coldzera" David. The roster of Keyd Stars is signed by Luminosity Gaming.
Team EnVyUs acquire Dan "apEX" Madesclaire and Kenny "kennyS" Schrub in a trade deal with Titan. Titan acquire Richard "shox" Papillon and Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux in the deal.
mousesports acquire PENTA Sports's Legends spot after signing Johannes "nex" Maget, Timo "Spiidi" Richter, and Denis "denis" Howell.
Team Kinguin forms and signs a European team, with players and a coach from five different countries. Mikail "Maikelele" Bill comes from Ninjas in Pyjamas, Håvard "rain" Nygaard and Dennis "dennis" Edman come from LGB eSports, Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom comes from Epsilon eSports, and Ricardo "fox" Pacheco comes from k1ck eSports Club.
Cloud9 release Shahzeeb "ShahZaM" Khan and Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen after poor performance. Four days later, it announces the signing of Ryan "fREAKAZOiD" Abadir and former iBUYPOWER member Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham.