The Counter Strike Global Offensive Asia Championships 2018 is one of the biggest tournaments in June. Organized by Perfect World and PGL, it enjoys the support of major sponsors, such as ASUS, Intel and Hyper X. With a guaranteed prize pool of $300,000, it had no problem in bringing the best teams to Shanghai for the offline tournament. It started on June 14 and concluded on June 18 and the event was won by Natus Vincere who defeated Virtus.Pro in the final.
Tournament Structure and Prize Pool
The group stage lasted for two days and it was played in a two double elimination format. There were two groups of four teams each and the top squad advanced directly to the semifinal. During this stage of the tournament, matches were played in a best-of-three series and the second and third teams also made the quarterfinals. Arguably the most exciting matches were the playoff games, which were also played in a best-of-three, but feature a single elimination bracket.
Natus Vincere was the first team to qualify from Group A, after winning two games. Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team EnVyUs were tied for second place, but the former had a better percentage. VG.FlashGaming lost back-to-back games and as a result suffered an untimely elimination from the event. Virtus.Pro emerged as the main counter candidate for the trophy after winning Group B. The other two that qualified were Heroic and TyLoo, both with one victory and a +3 points average.
Natus Vincere and Virtus.Pro swept opponents in semifinals and played a highly contested series. The final act of the Counter Strike Global Offensive Asia Championships 2018 was decided in three matches. For their victory, Natus Vincere collected $150,000 while the runners up had to settle for $60,000. TyLoo and Team EnVyUs finished in the third and fourth place and received $30,000 each. The teams eliminated in the quarterfinals got $10,000 and the bottom squads received a consolation prize of $5000.
Team West Wins the Championships’ Showmatch
The other highly anticipated event was the show match between Team West and Team East. The players selected to represent these squads were decided by community vote. This made it particularly interesting to see which team will have better synergy. The map chosen for this confrontation was Dust 2 and Team West outscored their opponents 16:9.
Team West was represented by five top players as follows: s1mple from Ukraine, pashaBiceps from Poland, ScreaM representing Belgium and GeT_RiGhT and f0rest from Sweden. Team East had its fair share of celebrities, with four Chinese players and one Indonesian, BnTeT. Somebody, Attacker, DD and Summer were the Counter Strike Global Offensive players from China.
Both the official games of the Counter Strike Global Offensive Asia Championships and the Showmatch were transmitted live. The broadcast talent included English and Chinese native speakers, as well as commentators from other European countries. The 2018 event exceeded expectations and the next Premier CS:GO event starts on July 3.
