ELEAGUE, the tournament and content brand from Turner and IMG has revealed the teams to compete in the ELEAGUE Major and also announced it will be the first to use newly-unveiled competition stage names from the game publisher Valve.
The Major will begin with the newly named “New Challengers Stage” which was formerly the Major Qualifier. The qualifier will take place between the 12th and 15th January, with action getting underway at 10 a.m ET, with coverage on Twitch. Certain matches will also be available on ELEAGUE’s Game Command, a player that allows the user to choose from thousands of CS:GO viewing combinations.
The New Challengers Stage will see the eight teams classed as current challengers put up against the Minor Champions and Runners Up, featuring teams such as EnVyUs, Space Soldiers, Misfits and Team Liquid.
The best of the bunch will move through to the “New Legends Stage” which will see the eight new challenger teams compete against the current legends teams in what was previously the major group stages. Again, the stage will take place at the ELEAGUE Arena in Atlanta.
Finally, at the end of January between 26th and 28th, the Agganis Arena in Boston will open its doors for the “New Champions Stage” in which the eight newly crowned legends will bid to become champions.
In addition to all of the above, ELEAGUE will air a five part series on TBS, getting underway on February 9th. It will take the fans on an “all-access journey with tournament favourites and hopefuls” as they pursue the Major title.
The final facet of the announcement is the Arena Fan Experience, in which fans will be provided with RFID badges which they can link their Steam account to. It will allow those in the arena to be eligible for souvenir drops (randomly awarded in-game items) by scanning into the arena. This is something that Valve do with The International, and makes entry and re-entry simple amongst allowing fans to be rewarded for watching on-site.
Esports Insider says: Despite the issues around teams not having complete rosters and roster-lock issues, we’re looking forward to the Major. ELEAGUE are known for phenomenal events and we’re sure this will be absolutely no different.
