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| The captains are ready. Are you? Ivan Saldajeno |
By Ivan Saldajeno
ONE of the most anticipated sporting events this year will finally commence. The first-ever ESL One tournament in Asia is set to take place this weekend. So what in the world is ESL One?
The Early Days
ESL, short for Electronic Sports League, first organized the tournament in 2013 under the name EMS One, which pitted the best DOTA 2 clubs in Europe and the Americas. The following year, ESL decided to take the tournament to a broader audience. Thus, the name change to its current title took place while ESL made the expansion of the tournament to cater Asian online gaming squads. In 2014 and 2015, New York and Frankfurt took turns hosting the tournament series, making Pasay only the third town overall and the first Asian city to become an ESL One host, signaling the expansion bid.
Meet the Teams
Eight teams will vie for a US$250 thousand pot for the tournament. Three of them--EHome, Secret, and Liquid--got automatic seats to the tournament through direct invitations. Secret initially declined the invite, but a few weeks later, they decided to defer the first decision and finally enter the tournament. Five others were determined via regional qualifiers. The Philippines, being the host country, was given a qualifying tournament of its own, and Mineski, the top e-sports club in the nation, got the privilege to represent the republic in the two-day (Or should I say three-day? More on that later.) event at the Mall of Asia Arena. Completing the eight-club field are Fnatic (Southeast Asian qualifier), Complexity (American qualifier), Empire (European qualifier), and Wings (Chinese qualifier). Because of having their own qualifier, Filipino clubs, i.e., teams whose majority of members are Filipinos, were barred from joining the SEA qualifier, although Mineski's Malaysian-based sister squad, Mineski-X, participated. Fnatic, the eventual SEA winner, has a Filipino member although the team was considered Malaysian.
The Tournament Format
The first editions of the ESL One used a single elimination format similar to the US NCAA. The ESL One tournament at the MOA Arena will be the first under the double elimination format used in other major e-sports events like the DOTA Majors, one of which will be hosted by the said venue in June. The eight teams, which are divided into two groups of four, will first be bracketed into different preliminary match-ups. The winners of the first four pairings will face off (depending on which group they belong) in the winners' bracket finals to determine the two outright semifinalists. The other four teams will form the losers' bracket and will clash (depending on the group they belong) in win-or-go-home matches. The survivors of the elimination games will then take on the losing sides of the winners' bracket finals in the losers' bracket finals, where the victors will complete the semifinal cast. The semifinals, which will be in a crossover format, i.e., the winners' bracket champion of one group will take on the losers' bracket champion of the other, will be best-of-three affairs with the survivors facing off in the best-of-five titular series.
The Schedule
Now, look again at the parenthesized question above. The thing is that while the tournament is advertised to happen on April 23-24, the start of the tournament is actually on April 22 with the preliminary rounds and the winners' bracket finals. However, the matches of the technical Day 1 will be held behind closed doors at an undisclosed location. Even the media is not permitted to go to the venue. However, we can track the latest "Day 0" developments through ESL One's website. The official Day 1 at the MOA Arena will have the entirety of the losers' bracket rounds, while the final day will have the Final Four and the Last Dance.
Nationally Televised Games
In what would be a first in the Asian e-sports scene, fans may not need to spend up to PHP200 just to watch the streaming of the games as Aksyon TV will air the entire tournament (except for the Friday prelims, of course) live. To add more national TV delight, the championship series will be simulcast on TV5 on Sunday night.
Now that you know some things about ESL One, are you ready? Then see you at the games!
Follow him on Twitter: @IvanSaldajeno
