With the first weekend of action over, the final 6 have 4 days to rest, or perhaps, non-stop practice, before the weekend of chaos that will see the quarter & semi finals played out, before the grand final on Sunday 28th February.
The fantastic performing teams pulled off some amazing matches, with some overcoming incredible odds and pulling off some astrounding performances that no one could have seen coming, such as Spirit taking down Astralis 16-1 on a map, Liquid finally putting a stop to Natus Vincere's win streak of 10 in a row and so many big names like Evil Geniuses, Vitality & G2 not making the cut.
However for Gambit, Natus Vincere, Liquid, Spirit, Astralis & Virtus.pro, who are through to playoffs the break will surely be welcomed, if nothing else but for time to bask knowing that whatever happens, they've come far in the tournament already, and of course, at worst, they'll still be leaving with $40,000! What is more likely of course, is a rigorous boot camp schedule getting to know the tactics and general lay out of their upcoming enemies plays in all the maps they'll be coming across.
Spirit & Liquid were the first to reach play offs, dominating through to win the top spot in their group. Spirit powered through G2, Heroic and even the might of Astralis to win Group A, while Liquid swept aside FaZe, Vitality and Natus Vincere, smashing the latters 10 game win streak in the process. This puts Spirit & Liquid straight into the semi-finals, whereas the other 4 teams will need to start in the quarters.
The playoffs begin on Friday 26th, with the grand final at the end of the weekend. The initial matches and times of future ones are below. All times are UTC/GMT+0;
Friday 26th February,
1400 - Gambit vs Natus Vincere
1730 - Virtus.pro vs Astralis
Saturday 27th,
1400 - Spirit vs Gambit/Natus Vincere winner
1730 - Liquid vs Astralis/Virtus.pro winner
Sunday 28th,
1400 - The Grand Final
Matches will be viewable on ESL TV twitch channel here. Match times may change nearer to the scheduled time if the previous match over-runs, as this is being displayed on one main stream, instead of an 'A' stream and 'B' stream.
