What’s on this week? Ft TI9 Grand Final

‘What’s on this week?’ is ESI’s weekly feature letting you know just what’s going on in the wonderful world of esports in the next seven days. Each week, ESI picks a selection of events and provides a brief overview of what’s going down, where it’s taking place, and how you can watch it.

The International 2019 is, of course, our main event this week. As the event heads into its final stretch, we’ll be locked into the action all week long. Valve’s other major esports title CS:GO also gets the Major treatment this week as the StarLadder Berlin Major gets underway. Lastly, we head to the LEC as the playoffs commence before heading to Athens, Greece for the finals.

The International 2019 Grand Final

It’s that time again! This week, we jump into the world of Dota 2 as we head to Shanghai for The International 2019. The ground-breaking event will see the best of the best compete for the largest prize pool in esports history – as of publishing, it sits at $33.7 million (£27.7 million).

The remaining 16 teams will now be divided, with the top teams heading to the upper bracket and worse-performing sides falling into the lower bracket. the following teams remain in the prestigious tournament: Team Secret, Virtus.pro, Vici Gaming, Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid, PSG.LGD, Fnatic, TNC Predator, OG, Alliance, Keen Gaming, Mineski, Newbee, Infamouse and RNG.

Stream: Dota2TI
Location: Shanghai, China
Date: 20–25th August
Organiser: Valve
Prize pool: $32.8 million (£27 million)

StarLadder Berlin Major Challengers Stage

This is the first week of the upcoming CS:GO Major. The Challengers Stage will see 16 teams face off over five rounds with initial seeding based off of HLTV’s world rankings. The initial matches are best-of-one with elimination and aAdvancement matches utilising the best-of-three format. The top eight teams will then advance to next week’s New Legends Stage with the bottom eight squads going home.

The 16 teams at the event, in ranking order, are Team Vitality, AVANGAR, G2 Esports, Complexity Gaming, HellRaisers, mousesports, NRG Esports, ForZe, Grayhound Gaming, CR4ZY, FURIA Esports, Syman Gaming, TYLOO, North, DreamEaters and INTZ eSports. The StarLadder Berlin Major will take place over the next three weeks with a $1 million prize pool on the line.

You can read our ESI Gambling Report on StarLadder Major here.

Stream: StarLadder_CS  
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date: 23rd–26th August
Sponsors: Secretlab, GG.BET, ZOWIE, Strafe Esports, OMEN by HP, HONOR
Organiser: StarLadder
Prize pool: €200,000 (£179,855.76)

LEC Summer Split Playoffs

It’s playoff time in LEC. On August 23rd, Rogue will take on Splyce Schalke 04 and Team Vitality battling on the following day. The winners of the two series will face off in the following week, followed by G2 Esports vs. Fnatic before the grand final.

Over the course of the split, LEC sees 10 teams battle it out in a double round-robin best-of-one format with the top six teams advancing to the playoffs. The top three sides from the playoffs will then go to Worlds as European representatives.

Stream: Riot Games
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date: 24–25th August
Sponsors: Kia, Alienware, DXRacer, Foot Locker, Logitech G, Shell, Warner Music, Tchibo, Beko, Red Bull, GoDaddy
Organiser: Riot Games
Prize pool: €200,000 (£179,855.76)

That’s a wrap on this week’s picks, be sure to check back next week for another edition of the ‘What’s on this week?’

We want to feature at least one smaller event each week on the ESI weekly picks. If you want an event included in What’s on this week? in a future edition, send an email to [email protected].

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