The two month long contest which ran from January 24th saw 20 teams facing off for the $40,000 prize, after one of the longest competing periods in a tournament, K23 & ECSTATIC made it the finals, with K23 winning 2-1.

Starting with group play, 16 teams played between 3 & 5 matches, depending on how good, or bad they did. The first 8 teams to win 3 matches, no matter how many losses they faced on the way, qualified, and the other 8 left with not a single cent to help them get home. The top 8, which were Dignitas, Unique, Sprout, SKADE, SINNERS, SAW, forZe & HEET. These went into a playoff with no second chances, if you lose you lose, there's no lower bracket here. Dignitas won over Unique, forZe were subdued by HEET, & SAW & Sprout were knocked out by SKADE & SINNERS respectively.

Enter the Quarter-Final, this is where 4 invited teams entered the competition, ECSTATIC, Copenhagen Flames, K23 & Entropiq. The teams who won the group play and were still in the game must have felt a little cheated after coming across the invited teams, as all of the invited teams beat out the previous qualified teams, and it was all of them going forwarded. So the next round, the semi-finals were all invited teams. The Flames were knocked out by K23 in 3 narrow matches, and ECSTATIC were the greater teams over Entropiiq in another 3 relatively close matches.

The Grand Final finally came 2 months after the first matches, and it was a banger, with both of these mid 20s ranked teams putting up some top-tier Counter Strike plays in a match that is really worth going back and watching the VOD of if you missed it. But when all was said & done, another 2-1 match came at us, ECSTATIC muddled through Overpass, entirely unable to match K23s fantastic tactics throughout the whole map and were sunk 16:4, before revenge was taken on a much closer 16:13 on Inferno to the Danes of ECSTATIC. Lastly was Nuke, a fan favourite of going on for multiple decades now. For ECSTATIC however, they may be less of a fan for a bit, after K23 outplayed them for 16:10, but most importantly the 2-1 winning line.

Going forward, both of these teams will likely come across each other again in August, as both qualified for LAN Sweet LAN, although neither team will be seen at the first Major of the year. K23 is currently in the final 4 of ESL Advanced Season 40.