ECS Season 8 Finals preview

What is the Esports Championship Series (ECS) Season 8 Finals?

The Esports Championship Series, also known as ECS, begins its eighth season this autumn 2019. ECS8 is split into two regions, North America and Europe, and is played in a best-of-three (Bo3) knockout bracket over five weeks of online play.

After five weeks of competition, eight teams, four from Europe and four from North America, have secured places at the Dallas Finals. There, they’ll compete for a share of $500,000 and to be the winners of the ECS Season 8 Finals where the winner will take home $225,000.

ECS Season 8 Finals odds

The odds below represent the opening matches for the ECS Season 8 Finals. For a complete list of odds for ECS 8, head over to our CS:GO section.

The top four: Evil Geniuses, Astralis, Fnatic, Liquid

The ECS Season 8 Finals is set to be one of the strongest events this year. The top four teams are in attendance, as number one team Evil Geniuses line up ahead of Astralis, Fnatic and Liquid. The rest of the field sees AVANGAR, NiP and MIBR, ranked 6th, 7th and 15th, with only Sharks falling outside the top 15.

MIBR were the last team from North America to qualify for this season's finals.

While Evil Geniuses weren’t the first team from their region to qualify, they were the team that won the first week. The North Americans will be coming into the team as the favourites, having won two of the three S-tier events since the Major, as well as finishing top of their ESL Pro League group. EG, headed up by Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz, still look strong despite hitting a speedbump in Malmo.

Heading up the European list are Astralis, who at the time of writing are rated as the second best team in the world. They secured their place in Dallas after winning the fourth week of ECS, beating BIG 2-1 in the final. The Danes are the current Major champions, and since then have competed in three LAN events, taking home two top fours and a second place.

Fnatic reached the top three after lifting a trophy on home soil. This was their win at DreamHack Malmo, which they followed up with a second place finish at StarSeries i-League Season 8. The Swedish team have started to, once again, look strong since the return of Robin “flusha” Rönnquist and Maikil “Golden” Selim.

The last team in this top four are Liquid. The North American team qualified for ECS in the fourth week, just after topping their ESL Pro League group. Despite that, they’ve had a less than perfect time. After finishing top four at ESL One New York they dropped out of DreamHack Malmo in 9-12th place. Their most recent event was BLAST Pro Series in Copenhagen, where they once again disappointed and finished fifth with a 2-3 record.

AVANGAR and NiP lead the remaining teams

The remaining ECS teams are a strong European / South American split. The highest rated team of this section are, coincidentally, the first team that qualified. AVANGAR, the predominantly Kazakhstani team, have returned to taking it slow since finishing as runners-up at the Berlin Major. Despite winning at BLAST Pro Series Moscow, they’ve since not had the greatest record, having finished fourth at second tier DreamHack Open Rotterdam before getting knocked out of StarSeries i-League Season 8 in 9-12th.

With EG, Astralis, Fnatic and Liquid, the top four teams are all in attendance at ECS Season 8 Finals.

NiP on the other hand beat AVANGAR at BLAST Pro Series Moscow, even if they did end up finishing third. But since then the Swedes haven’t lit the world on fire, being eliminated from the first round of play-offs at V4, DreamHack Masters Malmo and StarSeries i-League Season 8 all in a row. Their most recent event, BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen, saw them finish strong, being runners up to FaZe in the final.

The next team to discuss are MIBR. The Brazilians were the last team from North America to qualify this season, beating eUnited in the final. Between now and the Major, however, that and finishing top of their ESL Pro League group have been their only real successes. A fourth place finish at BLAST Pro Series Moscow and a fourth place at second-tier V4 aren’t much to write home about. Their recent 5-6th place at StarSeries i-League came off the back of an impressive lower bracket run, so it may not be worth counting them out just yet.

Sharks round out the teams heading to ECS. Having come from the Pinnacle Cup, the Brazilian/Argentinian team were an outsider to even qualify for this season. That being said, they finished second in the first two weeks of the season to qualify, and finished top of the Latin America ESL Pro League group. This will be their first offline tournament finals since the Americas Minor in July, where they finished fourth

Pre-ECS Events

There are two events before ECS Season 8 Finals, both in China. First will be IEM Beijing, between November 7 - 11, where Astralis and Evil Geniuses have been invited to compete. Then Perfect World’s CS:GO Asian Championships are set to take place between November 21 - 24, where AVANGAR, Evil Geniuses and MIBR will be in action.

There’s a lot of time for the odds to shift, and predictions to change as teams move ahead of each other in the rankings, or have better performances against one another. So do keep that in mind before making your mind up as to who your winner is - it can quickly change.

The ECS Season 8 Finals start on November 28, and continue until December 2. All the action in the $125,000 event can be found on the FACEIT Twitch channel.

* Odds subject to change