StarLadder, hot off the heels of organising the Berlin Major, return with the latest of its StarSeries i-League tournaments. The eighth season sees $500,000 on offer for 16 teams.
The end of October sees a small Turkish resort town, Belek, host the eighth edition of the StarSeries i-League tournament. With 16 teams in attendance from all of CS:GO’s most competitive regions, they will battle for $500,000 of prizes.
StarSeries i-League Season 8 will see every game played as a best-of-three, from the Group Stage to the Grand Final. The Group Stage will see two eight-team double elimination GSL-style groups, with the top four teams headed to the double elimination playoffs. The top two teams move to the upper bracket, while the third and fourth teams enter at the lower bracket.
The odds below represent the opening matches for week two of StarSeries i-League Season 8. For a complete list of odds for StarSeries i-League Season 8, head over to our CS:GO section.
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Follow Pinnacle EsportsWhile Astralis and Liquid aren’t in attendance at the Turkish resort, three other Top Five teams will be taking to the stage at the upcoming StarLadder event.
First up are Evil Geniuses. The North Americans head to Turkey having finished top of their ESL Pro League group, after having only dropped two maps. EG are looking for a strong rebound after a poor performance at DreamHack Malmö, where they were eliminated in last place without a win.
Group A's opening match to watch is between Renegades and MIBR. With their current cores, MIBR have come out the strongest, winning six maps to Renegades’ two.
Fnatic are the next highest-rated squad. The Swedes have recently rocketed up to fourth place on HLTV.org’s rankings after their new roster debuted with a surprise win at DreamHack Malmö. Their run to the title saw them claim wins over the likes of Astralis, NiP, G2 and FURIA before taking Vitality down in the final. Unfortunately for Fnatic they were unable to repeat their best-of-three win over the Danish squad, as they are set to take part in the second ESL Pro League stage having finished second in their group.
The final team from the top three is Vitality. As previously mentioned, the French squad are coming off the back of a strong Malmö performance, showing that they had improved on their top eight finish that they had at the Major. However, Vitality will be forced to take part in the second round of groups in the ESL Pro League, after suffering a shock defeat to NiP and finishing third in their group.
All three teams, despite being towards the top of the pile, have things to prove. Evil Geniuses are looking to make a statement indicating that ESL One New York is the norm, and DreamHack Malmö was the one-off. Fnatic are looking to keep up the 2016 vibes their new roster are currently giving off. Vitality want to prove they are more than just Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. With neither of the big two in attendance, this is their best shot to cement that.
The event itself is full of top teams. Seven of HLTV.org’s current top ten are set to compete, and AVANGAR and mousesports lead that list. However, they are not the only other strong teams headed to Turkey, with Brazilians MIBR and FURIA not close behind, and Heroic, North, Natus Vincere and G2 also in the mix.
One way of describing this tournament is “stacked”. On paper, Group B looks to be the hardest group. Not only does it have EG heading it up, but also features AVANGAR, NiP, FURIA and Natus Vincere as other big headline teams. Not only that, but none of them have an easy start to the competition, as they’d probably hope.
EG head to Turkey having finished top of their ESL Pro League group, after having only dropped two maps.
While being the second highest-rated team in the group, AVANGAR are likely to be at a mild disadvantage going into the tournament. They, alongside Heroic, are in action at DreamHack Open Rotterdam the weekend immediately before. While the remainder of the field will be heading in with a break and time off, these two teams will only have a day between the Grand Final and the start of their group.
The game to watch will be Na`Vi taking on G2. The two teams have had differing fortunes over the past few years, with the Russian-speaking squad maintaining their ranking position while G2 has seen theirs tail behind the rest of the board.
However, despite Na`Vi being five places ahead of G2 in the HLTV.org rankings and being on paper better than the Frenchmen, it’s not quite clear-cut. In matches between the two cores of each team, Na`Vi has only won one out of the four maps they’ve played. With Nemanja “nexa” Isaković and Nemanja “hunter-“ Kovač having joined as well, there’s a lot more firepower to this team and is an opening game not to be missed.
Group A is similarly strong, as while Fnatic and Vitality lead the lines, mousesports, Renegades, MIBR and North are all also featuring. While the big two are heading off against noticeably lesser opposition, the other four teams are set to face each other in their tournament openers.
Fnatic have recently rocketed up to fourth place on HLTV.org’s rankings after their new roster debuted with a surprise win at DreamHack Malmö.
The match to watch in Group A’s opener will be the continuation of the long running rivalry between Renegades and MIBR. The two teams have been known to each other for a long time in North America throughout many versions of their rosters, for being the first two out-of-region teams to move there.
With their current cores, MIBR have come out the strongest, winning six maps to Renegades’ two. The Australians’ only win came at the last StarSeries i-League tournament, where they ended up finishing in the top four. MIBR, meanwhile, have seen their wins come all the way back from IEM Katowice, and most recently at BLAST Pro Series LA.
After the big Western teams are out of the way, there are three smaller teams remaining in the pack. There’s the two Chinese teams, Invictus and 5Power, and then Brazilians Imperial. None of those teams are often in international competition, and when they are they don’t tend to impress. Imperial and 5Power are the only ones to have played offline this year, and neither team got past the group stages of their events.
StarSeries i-League Season 8 starts on Monday, October 21 and will run until October 26. With $500,000 on offer for the 16 teams, all the action can be caught on the StarLadder Twitch stream.
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