4 invited teams and 4 winners of the closed qualifiers from China, East Asia and SEA will face off for a spot for their region in the Finals to take place in the Qudos Arena.
Here are the first match-ups in the Southeast Asia closed qualifier:
BOOT-d[s] vs. NASR
Entity vs. Lucid Dream
TNC vs. Alpha Red
Maple vs. Beyond
East Asia closed qualifier:
MVP PK vs. IM11
2990 vs. D13
Storm Rider vs. Ignis
HWML vs. Absolute
The Greater China closed qualifier bracket is below:
The qualification process is simple, with the 4 invited teams rom each region facing off against the qualified teams in a best of 3 double elimination match, with the finals being a best of 5 series for the spot.
The 3 winners will join the 9 invited teams, consisting the likes of MIBR and FaZe, as well as the AU/NZ National Champion and the Ocenania Qualifier winners. The $250,000 tournament is set to take place from April 3-May 5.
Navi star Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev has been announced as the brand ambassador of popular peripheral company AMD.
I am happy to let you know that starting today, I will be representing AMD company, the products of which I’ve been using myself. This is the first partnership of such a scale for me. I feel the same responsibility when my game is being watched by thousands of loyal fans. Our journey has just begun, and I am sure, it’s going to be long and fruitful!
AMD, which specialises in processors and graphic cards for gaming, recently announced that it would be supplying GPU’s for Google’s cloud gaming platform Stadia. This partnership is a first for AMD in CSGO.
While the financial details of the partnership have not been revealed, it is likely that AMD will appear on S1mple’s stream as well as some exclusive promotional features.
Nuke, being picked up by TAF was quite a one sided affair for their opponents. NASR started on CT-side with indestructible defese. TAF could only manage to lurk a couple of rounds here and there. First half was inclined 13-2 in the favour of Arab lineup.
Second half ended with same storyline as TAF could manage a round while NASR picked three rounds wasting no time. NASR convincingly won the first map 16-3.
NASR won the pistol round on T-side of Inferno. Arabs looked quite composed and won the following two rounds as well. However, TAF won the following round to get the first round on the board. NASR won seven consecutive rounds and took 10-1 lead in the first half of Inferno. TAF were picked apart one by one and the defence crumbled at the hands of Arabs.
Finally, TAF got the second round as double-AWP setup led to success. AWP got a couple of early picks in the thirteenth round as well to get 3vs5 advantage for TAF and they were quite efficient in closing down the round. NASR almost lost the fourteenth round but breAker clutched the round in an insane 1vs3 scenario. However, TAF won the last round and the half ended 11-4 favouring the Arab squad.
NASR won the second pistol on the CT side followed by succeeding three rounds. NASR went onto match point 15-4. TAF secured the twentieth round by executing B-site and traded a couple of players quite convincingly. TAF also won following two rounds but their journey ended as the Arabs grabbed twenty-third round and booked their slot in the closed qualifier.
With this win, NASR has advanced to IEM Sydney 2019 – SEA Closed Qualifier alongside Alpha Red, Entity Gaming and Team Maple. Four teams will battle in a doube elimination best of three format alongside four invited teams. While the grand finale remains to be best of five.
Team Envy have revamped their roster by adding three new players on the team before the the North American open qualifier for DreamHack Masters Dallas.
The team has taken up the services of Jacob “FugLy” Medina, Bradley “ANDROID” Fodor and Sam “s0m”. The three will be joining Josh “jdm64” Marzano and Noah “Nifty” Francis, the only two standing from when the roster was formed six months ago. These changes doubt the future of h Stephen “reltuC” Cutler and Taylor “Drone” who are not a part of this roster.
Since Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen left the team in October, the team have failed to find a footing for themselves and have used Matt “Pollo” Wilson and Finn “karrigan” Andersen on loan from FaZe.
ANDROID had been benched by compLexity since december and was on the lookout for a new challenge since being benched.
S0m is a 16-year-old boy who is known for his extremely flashy gameplay style and was last seen playing for Swole Patrol, qualifying for IEM Sydney before the core of the team was signed by eUnited.
Today at GDC 2019, Google unveiled its gaming platform named “Stadia”. Stadia is a cloud-based gaming platform offering games on demand streamed through the cloud. Stadia is set to launch later this year (no dates announced as of yet). Stadia will allow its users to stream games over a variety of devices with no real performance loss.
Google demonstrated moving gameplay seamlessly across different devices from phone to a tablet than to a TV, all being google devices. At launch, Stadia is expected to stream 4k 60fps games right over the internet. They demonstrated an example of watching a game trailer on YouTube, where at the end you could tap on the Play button to quickly jump into the game in as little as 5 seconds.
Stadia aims to bring together playing, spectating and streaming all onto a single platform. Players can stream the game on any device as long as it is able to process the stream without hitch. This effectively removes the minimum spec requirements for playing games and also removes the need to keep games and system up-to-date with the latest patches. All the game data and library will be stored over Google’s servers rather than locally on host device. At launch, games will be streamable across laptops, desktops, TVs, tablets, and phones (no news about console support as of now).
Google also showed off its new controller that will be coming with Stadia. The controller looks like a cross between the Xbox and PlayStation controller with extra features built over it. The controller will feature direct screen capture and upload buttons, so as to upload games moments directly onto YouTube. The controller also has a built-in Google Assistant button. The controller is said to connect seamlessly over Wi-Fi directly to Stadia service to ensure low-latency, lag-free experience and ability to use the same controller over other devices without logging out of session.
Google Stadia’s multi-GPU technology.
One of the first games to launch on Stadia will be DOOM: Eternal and most probably Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey as it was available in beta testing (Project Stream). Although Google didn’t specify the number of titles available at launch but they expect a good number of games will be available for customers to enjoy.
For Stadia Google partnered with AMD to provide a custom-made GPU for their data centres. The said GPU will have 10.7 teraflops of power, 56 compute units, and HBM2 memory. The CPU will also be a custom AMD x86 processor clocked at 2.7GHz, hyperthreaded, and AVX 2 compatible. This whole setup will be paired with a total of 16GB HBM2 memory, with up to 484 GB/s transfer speed, and L2+L3 cache of 9.5MB shared between CPU and GPU.
MxB Gaming have advanced to the Semi-finale of IEM Sydney 2019 – SEA Open Qualifier by taking down 2be.PowerAce after defeating them 16-13 in a back and forth nail-biting encounter.
Via ESEA
MxB Gaming took down Suspect Esports 16-12 on Mirage in the round 2. Later, HellRangeR and co. won over RRQ 16-12 on Mirage. 2be.PowerAce reached semi-finale after defeating Sedna RED and DarkHouse.
Hence, both the teams were set to battle in the quarter-finale of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Qualifier #2 and Indian squad has taken down 2be.PowerAce. HellRangeR and co. will battle against Team Maple in the semi-finale.
If MxB Gaming wins tomorrow, they will enter the closed qualifier alongside Entity Gaming.
NASR advanced to Quarter finale of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Open Qualifier #2 by taking down RAD Syndicate and EVOS eSports. On the other hand, MxB took down Suspect Gaming and RRQ.
Inferno being the map, Global Esports on the T-side went ahead with an early 4-0 advantage against NASR eSports in the quarter-finale of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Open Qualifier. NASR didn’t let them build the lead anymore and bagged three rounds on the trot. However, Global Esports didn’t let the scores tie and got a round in their bag.
Better late than never, NASR equalized the scoreboard at 5-5 by winning two consecutive rounds. In the eleventh round, NASR got an early two man advantage but they couldn’t covert it into win. However, they won a couple of following rounds to take lead 7-6. First half ended 9-6 in favour of Arabs.
Via: ESEA
Global Esports won second pistol and the succeeding round as well but 18th round went in NASR’s favour with merely five upgraded pistols. Global Esports couldn’t find grab any rounds until 23rd round when NASR made silly mistake dropping the bomb on T-slope. Scoreboard turned 14-9 in the favour of NASR.
Both the teams exchanged one round and NASR went on to secure the match point 15-10. Twenty-sixth round was won by NASR eSports and Arabs have advanced to Semi-Finale of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Open Qualifier #2. Arabs will be facing Tommy and Friends tomorrow in the semi-finale and the winner will advance to closed qualifier.
Global Esports won the pistol round and went ahead with an early 6-0 advantage on T-side of Inferno. However, AlterEgo fought back and the first half ended 9-6 in the favour of Mumbai based organization.
The second half seemed to somewhat nail biting with back and forth rounds. However, Global Esports didn’t let the table turn and they took down Alter Ego 16-13 on Inferno.
They will be facing NASR eSports in the Semi-Finals of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Open Qualifier #2.
After his departure from Entity Gaming, Bhavin “HellRangeR” Kotwani went back to his previous team MxB Gaming and resumed his journey alongside his friends. The squad couldn’t secure commendable results at the Open Qualifier of COBX Masters Mumbai. However, lads have done serious damage in the #2 SEA Open Qualifier of IEM Sydney: 2019.
Via ESEA
MxB Gaming took down Suspect Esports 16-12 on Mirage in the round 2. Later, HellRangeR and co. were set to battle against Team RRQ. Surprisingly, MxB defeated RRQ 16-12 on Mirage in the round 3.
With this win, Mumbai based lineup has moved into the Quarter Finale of IEM Sydney 2019: SEA Open Qualifier #2. They will be facing 2be.PowerAce later this evening.
Global Esports Esports took on Made in Thailand in Cache and began their game on the CT-Side. The Indian team struggled on the Ct side and were dominated for the first 6 rounds till they could pull back one for their own. The Indian team hustled for the rest of the half and ended it with a scoreline of 8-7 in the favor of Made in Thailand.
Via ESEA
The Indian team came out with a splendid T-side, leaving Made in Thailand with no answers for their executes and pulled the game back to 13-11 before Made in Thailand pulled back the score to 13-13. In the end, Global Esports emerged triumphant with a scoreline of 16-13 and advanced to the third round.
