ICE CHALLENGE GROUPS, INITIAL MATCHUPS, TALENT ANNOUNCED
The organizers of ICE Challenge have announced the group stage distribution, opening matchups, and full talent lineup of the $250,000 tournament.
The group stage of the tournament will be played in a best-of-three GSL format during the first two days of the event (February 1-2). Each group will see three teams advance to the single-elimination playoffs (February 4-6).
As the highest-ranked team of all the participants, mousesports headline Group A, where they will be challenged by three teams ranked between the 16th-19th spot, Heroic, Virtus.pro, and MAD Lions.
Aleksib’s OG will face his former team ENCE in the opening round
Group B features a wider variety of teams when it comes to their position in the world ranking, with the other top-ten side in attendance, Natus Vincere, being joined ENCE, GODSENT, and OG.
The group distribution looks as follows:
mousesports
Heroic
Virtus.pro MAD Lions
Natus Vincere
ENCE OG GODSENTThe second group sets up a mouth-watering first-ever clash between ENCE, who in large part struggled for good results after replacing Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen with Miikka “suNny” Kemppi in September, and their former in-game leader’s OG.
The London tournament will mark the second appearance of the squad around Nathan “NBK-“ Schmitt, who made their debut at cs_summit 5 in December, finishing in third-fourth place after a close loss to mousesports in the semi-finals.
The opening matchups are:
Finally, the talent lineup has been revealed as well, and it looks as follows:
Tres “stunna” Saranthus – Desk host
Halvor “vENdetta” Gulestøl – Analyst
Matthew “Sadokist” Trivett – Commentator
Henry “HenryG Greer – Commentator
You were waiting for it!💥
Here comes the groupstage of ICE Challenge London 2020 supported by https://t.co/1IdtbFRzRK!Don't miss it!👇#ICELondon2020 #maincast #CSGO pic.twitter.com/mfJOzvGnif
— CS:GO Maincast 🇬🇧 (@csgomcast) January 15, 2020
Source: hltv.org