CounterStrike Tournament

This summer’s Counter-Strike tournament will be one of the most interesting and controversial in the CPL’s existence. Teams have everything to lose, and yet everything to gain. At the recent ESWC event in France two weeks ago, the two top seeded teams, and top two finishers of last winter’s CPL Counter-Strike tournament were both knocked out of the tournament in what some people would consider the earlier stages of the tournament. One of those teams, NoA, recently proved they can still perform by finishing 1st at the Everlan tournament last week. Although SK.swe, 1st place finishers at the Winter CPL, have something to prove to themselves following their almost shocking loss to Russian clan Virtus.Pro. A lot of people blame these random results to the bad computers used at the ESWC Tournament. The CPL shouldn’t have a problem as their computers are the best of the best, which you can see for yourself by checking out the CPL Computer Specs. Others blame SK and NoA’s loss on the tournament using only 4 maps. The CPL will have no problem with that as their MAP ROTATION is as diverse as you can get. Of course you guys want to see a list of all the teams registered to compete in the tournament. You can check out the whole TEAM LIST that has registered for the CPL, even though some teams will drop out. On top of those teams, here is a list of teams that won qualifiers to attend the CPL Summer 2004 event:

Europe

Spain Qualifier: N/A
Yugoslavia Qualifier: m5team
United Kingdom Qualifier: GoodGame
France Qualifier: ArmaTeam
Greece Qualifier: The Titans

North America

Canada Qualifier: Evil Geniuses
Canada Qualifier: East Coast Offensive*
New York Qualifier: zEx
California Qualifier: Rival

* = finished 2nd at CPL Canada Qualifier, but still qualified for a CPL Berth

South America

Chile Qualifier: PuntoCL
Peru Qualifier: DiN
Brazil Qualifier: Made in Brazil

Asia

Japan Qualifier: Four Dimension
China Qualifier: [GBR]Titans

Prize Money

The Counter-Strike tournament this year will be sponsored by Hitachi, offering $100,000 in total spread between the top 16 finishers:

1st - $30,000.00
2nd - $21,000.00
3rd - $14,000.00
4th - $9,000.00
5th - $6,000.00
6th - $5,000.00
7th - $3,000.00
8th - $2,000.00
9th-12th - $1,500.00
13th-16th - $1,000.00

CPL Winter 2003 Results

With no large upcoming events on the horizon, teams will have nothing to hold back, so some explosive matches are assured. Expect some classic match-ups and some big upsets, as the ESWC proved there are a lot of seemingly unknown teams that can compete with the big ones, though a lot of the teams blamed the random results on the bad planning of the event and some of the strange rules like the map veto system. Luckily, the CPL provides the big teams the opportunity to make only one mistake, using a double-elimination system for the majority of the tournament. In terms of the rules and tournament system, little or nothing has changed since CPL Winter seven months ago, which finished up looking a little like this:

1st - SK.swe - $30,000
2nd - NoA - $21,000
3rd - mousesports - $14,000
4th - Adrenaline[GX] - $9,000
5th - mibr - $6,000
6th - Team64 - $5,000
7th - United 5 - $3,000
8th - 4Kings - $2,000
9th-12th - RDW, Forsaken, Drake, g3x.Intel - $1,500
13th-16th - TEC, TSG, 3D, Gamewyze - $1,000

Practically all of the teams listed above are returning next week, seedings similar to these results wouldn’t be shocking either. With such an outstanding line-up of the world’s most astounding teams and players, next week’s CPL event is sure to totally blow you away, even if you’re only following this event from your computer at home, which I know a lot of you are.