Photo Credit: ECS
The fourth season of ECS has begun its culmination today with the ECS Season 4 Finals. Top teams from around the world have gathered for a share of the $750,000 offered for this tournament. There are a total of eight teams, split up into two groups. Group A contains Fnatic, mousesports, OpTic, and Luminosity while Group B has Cloud9, Liquid, FaZe, and Astralis. The tournament is being held in Cancun, Mexico and will stretch from 12/15 to 12/17.
Group A
The highest ranked team in Group A and one of the teams with the longest legacies in CS:GO and other Counterstrike titles is Fnatic. After their revamping of their team, Fnatic has hung in the top 10 and are looking better and better as their new teammates begin to mesh with the team. The European mix teams of mousesports and OpTic are the next two teams in this group. Both have similar identities with all five of the players from each team coming from different countries as their teammates. In addition, both teams currently are just outside the top 10 teams in the world. The final team in this group is the Brazilian team, Luminosity. Widely regarded as the third best Brazilian team, they have begun to make an impact on North American tournaments after their move from South America to the United States.
Group B
Although Group A contains several top teams, Group B is arguably much harder for the teams with three of the four teams rated within the top 5 teams in the world. The highest rated team, FaZe, is the top European mix team in the world. Since adding olofmeister and GuardiaN, this team has been on a rampage, securing themselves a top 2 spot, just shy of SK Gaming. Astralis come in at 3rd and have a strong resume and impressive record to support their spot. At almost all points during CS:GO, they have been a top 5 team and more often than not, within the top 3. Cloud9 rounds out the three top teams in the group, claiming their spot as the best North American team in the world. Although Liquid is not one of the top 5 teams in the group, they have a strong placement as the 10th best team in the world and can certainly look to upset one of the top teams and make it out.