Monza, Italy (GotFrag) - With the 2006 World Cyber Games coming up and teams from around the world starting to converge on Monza, Italy. This Olympic style event always brings teams talent to a whole new level as they are not only representing themselves, but their country as well. This tournament is guaranteed to be action packed with many amazing matches with national pride on the line.

The past two years has seen a familiar face take home the Gold in the Counter-Strike tournament, but with this year going back to Counter-Strike 1.6, many people feel this can tilt the odds against 3D. NiP has been the hottest team lately, but can they continue their reign of dominance? They were pushed to the edge against SK in the WCG Sweden qualifier but overcame all odds to be victorious. Will 3D prove that they can win in Counter-Strike 1.6 and not only Condition Zero or Source? Can MiBR recapture the glory of their ESWC victory with the return of the Brazilian sensation, Rafael "cogu" Camargo? Can Pentagram show that their WSVG UK performance is not a one time deal?

There are a lot of questions heading into this tournament, and in five days, all of them will be answered. Join Jeff “Affliction” Maher as he takes a quick look at how the tournament is shaping up.

The format for WCG begins with a stage of group play with the fourty-nine teams split up into eight groups. Once this round robin stage wraps up, the top two teams in each group will advance into a 16 team single elimination best of three bracket. The last team standing of this single elimination will be crowned the World Cyber Games 2006 Counter-Strike Champions and bring the Gold, and $60,000, home with them. More details can be found on the WCG website here.

GotFrag's very own Mark "jESUIT" Cheben, Marc "Singlecoil" Turner and Jaczie Lo will all be live on site in Monza to bring the most extensive event coverage available. From Gamesense Statistics, to HLTV, to exclusive photo galleries, GotFrag will be your source for all the updates and happenings from the 2006 World Cyber Games.

Due to the overwhelmingly large pool of teams, analysis is done on a group by group basis.

World Cyber Games Information

Date: October 18th to 22nd
Venue: Autodromo Nazaional Monza
Host City: Monza, Italy

General Event Schedule

Thursday, October 19th - Groups A through D
Friday, October 20th - Groups E through H
Saturday, October 21st - Single Elimination best of three
Sunday, October 22nd - Grand Finals

Prize Distribution

1. $60,000
2. $30,000
3. $15,000
4-8. Hardware prizes

Group Stage Map Rotation

Round 1: de_train
Round 2: de_nuke
Round 3: de_dust2
Round 4: de_inferno
Round 5: de_nuke
Round 6: de_dust2
Round 7: de_train