Cloud 9 have made the cut to the New Legends Stage following a 2-0 victory in the final Swiss round of the New Challengers Stage over Winstrike. Cloud 9 and 7 other teams from the Challengers stage will be joining the top 8 teams from the FACEIT 2018 Major to compete for the IEM Katowice championship.
The format for the tournament will be the same; each of 16 teams will be asked to rank their opponents, the scores will then be added up to form a “Player-Selected Seeding”, which will be used to determine the games for the first round of the Swiss stage.
Based on their seed, each team will be assigned an ELO rating which will be adjusted after every round, the game winner will gain a certain amount of points from the loser and the following match-ups are determined by taking the ELO changes into account.
The full list of the teams which will be at the New Legends Stage is as follows:
| Astralis | Liquid |
| BIG | MIBR |
| FaZe | Natus Vincere |
| HellRaisers | compLexity |
| NRG | Renegades |
| Vitality | AVANGAR |
| ENCE | NiP |
| G2 | Cloud9 |
The ESL Pro gaming director, Michal Blicharz, has said on his Twitter that the initial seeding and first-round fixtures will be revealed on Tuesday, just before the start of the last-16 stage.
Probably Tuesday. Teams need to seed each other first. https://t.co/CHR6XOWHnf
— Michal Blicharz (@mbCARMAC) February 17, 2019
A rough schedule of the tournament is as follows:
- Wednesday, February 20: Round 1 and Round 2- BO1’s
- Thursday, February 21: Round 3- BO1’s & BO3’s
- Friday, February 22: Round 4- BO3’s
- Saturday, February 23: Round 4-BO3’s
- Sunday, February 24: Round 5-BO3’s
