ESL One Cologne 2020 reaches Playoffs stage across all four regions

The online edition of ESL One Cologne 2020 has reached Playoffs across all four regions. The two biggest regions of Europe and North America saw unexpected exists by tournament favorites, while the minor regions of Oceania and Asia are sticking to their pre-event predictions.

With the playoffs stage soon underway, we have just enough time to recap all the mishaps and events across all four regions. Additionally, we will try and make some predictions on where the competition might ultimately lead us.

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ESL One Cologne 2020 Group Stage Breakdown

Only two of the four regions featured a group stage phase. North America with two groups of four and Europe with two groups of eight. Our pre-event Regional Breakdown was proven right in only a select number of cases, with many of our expectations not being met.

ESL One Cologne Europe Group Stage

Europe lost BIG, NaVi, Fnatic, Mousesports and FaZe Clan before Playoffs even rolled around. The biggest surprise being BIG (#1 seed) losing two matches back to back to Sprout and NiP and ending up eliminated in last place. Mousesports and mibr didnt fare too well either, with both also losing back to back matches.

The performance of mousesports recently has been so poor that Özgür “⁠woxic⁠” Eker ended up benched after their elimination.

Fnatic and FaZe Clan at least made it past their first elimination match before being eliminated in the pre-playoffs elimination phase. Both teams put up a bit of a fight, before ultimately bowing out of the competition.

It has become a trend, that most of the teams that took the summer off or didn’t participate in too many online events are ending up eliminated. On the other hand, teams that actively pushed online play to the limits (eg. Complexity, Sprout, OG, Heroic) are having solid runs at the event thus far.

ESL One Cologne North America Group Stage

On the NA side of things, Group B went down as planned with Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses making it out of groups at the expense of Cloud9 and Triumph.

Group A however, saw our pre tournament favorites Gen.G end up eliminated in two consecutive matches, and also losing at the hands of another eliminated team in 100 Thieves. It was Chaos EC and FURIA that made it out of Group A, and are set to face their Group B counterparts.

A point of joy for new owners Logic and Pusha-T, who just bought themselves into Chaos EC a day ago.

ESL One Cologne 2020 Playoffs Breadown

The playoffs are simultaneously kicking off across all four regRions. With about 10 series happening within a 24 hour period, there is plenty of CSGO betting to go around. We will look into the matches for all four regions starting with the biggest one and moving down.

ESL One Cologne Europe Playoffs

The European bracket still holds the toughest competition with two of recent #1 seeds still in the competition. Both Astralis and G2 are seeking to return to their former glory and they both have relatively easy matchups to do so. Before all that gets going Complexity and Heroic, two of the “underdogs” we didn’t even expect to make it this far are facing off for their shot at the semifinals.

© ESL One Cologne

After seeing what Heroic did to Fnatic and FaZe Clan, we are fairly confident they are the favorites in this matchup. Complexity also performed good versus both NaVi and MAD Lions, making this an interesting match up to watch. This two teams single-handedly eliminated three of the tournament favorites. Whoever comes on top is just adding to their list of accolades at this event.

On the other side of the bracket Sprout is seeking to continue their dominating run after sending both the #1 seed BIG and OG to the losers bracket. Another victory will cement Sprouts place among the top teams in Europe. It will be a high achievement for a team that barely made it into the top 30 teams before the event kicked off.

Finally we do expect Astralis and G2 to make it into the next stage over NiP and OG respectively. We do have to remember however, that NiP eliminated both BIG and NaVi in back to back elimination matches and are going to heavily contest Astralis, especially if they are given Train, Nuke or Mirage.

ESL One Cologne North America Playoffs

The NA playoffs consist of only two matches. Liquid meets Chaos EC and Evil Geniuses face off against FURIA. Prediction wise, we can easily expect EG advancing to the finals. In the other match-ups however, we are going against the grain and giving the final to Chaos EC over Team Liquid.

Liquid have not been convincing enough as of late, especially after signing Jason “moses” O’Toole as their new head coach over AdreN and losing Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella to Valorant. We expect the new owners of Chaos EC to rejoice at yet another victory for their new squad.

In the end, Evil Geniuses are still the favorites to win the final and the whole event regardless of who they meet. Those seeking to place bets can look no further then GG.Bet who still have EG at 1.51 coefficients for their next match.

ESL One Cologne Asia & Oceania Playoffs

The two minor regions are heading straight into playoffs from the get go, as they both feature only four teams each. Each region goes through a double-elimination bracket and the entire competition is done in 6 matches.

Renegades is still dominating the Oceanic region and is likely winning the trophy with ease. They only have a regular challenger in ORDER, but losing to them is a true rarity. Their match in the winner bracket semifinal was played earlier today but ended up with a postponement after several ORDER players faced power outages. Down at the loser bracket Chiefs and Avant are going to play an elimination game before the loser likely meets ORDER to decide the second finalist.

Similarly, TYLOO is dominating the Asian division and has already secured themselves the Grand Final spot. They beat ViCi in a close series to earn their spot there. ViCi still has a chance to try a second time, as they await the winner from the elimination match between Invictus Gaming and Beyond Esports.

Regardless of the who wins the elimination match, ViCi are the clear favorites to make it into the final and play a rematch versus TYLOO. Considering how close the first matchup was, we might be in for a real showdown in the rematch.

You can follow the conclusion of ESL One Cologne 2020 across all four regions exclusively on the official ESL CS:GO Twitch Channel.

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