Contents
If you are looking for a big StarCraft 2 event to get your teeth into when it comes to eSports betting, then there’s this weekend’s WCS Winter Regional Qualifiers to look at, but a better option may 
well be the forthcoming Intel Extreme Masters Season X event being held in Taipei.
The event in Taipei kicks off on Monday 1st February and is the third event of IEM Season X and it is taking place offline over LAN at the Taipei World Trade Center as part of the big Taipei Game Show convention taking place at the same time.
The first event was held in Shenzhen in July and was won by the then SK Telecom T1 player Classic, who defeated PartinG in the final. The second event was held in Cologne in August at the gamescom event in Cologne and this time it was INnoVation who took the top prize of $10,000, defeating soO in the final.
Since then, things have moved on at pace in the eSports gaming world and eight of the world’s very best StarCraft 2 players will be taking to the stage in Taipei to compete for the top prize.
The qualifiers are Protoss players MC (S.Korea), herO (S.Korea), sOs (S.Korea) and Lilbow (France); Terran qualifiers ByuN and Polt (both South Korea) and two Zerg contestants in Soulkey (South Korea) and Snute (Norway).
The tournament is a straight knockout from a quarter final stage, with each match being contested over a best of five format until the final which is a best of seven match up. The quarter finals will be played on Monday 1st February with the semi finals and final played on Tuesday 2nd February.
The draw for the event pits Lilbow vs. Byun, Soulkey vs. Polt, sOs vs. MC and Snute v herO.
Betting will be available on all these key matches at your usual eSports books throughout the two days of action.
This is a crucial tournament ahead of the 2016 World Championship Series event in Katowice, Poland, which is scheduled to take place in March and in which several of the players participating in the event in Taipei have already qualified, or hope to qualify for in future.
CS:GO Intel Extreme Masters Qualifiers to do Battle in Taipei
After a hard fought series of six regional qualifiers that have seen half a dozen teams earn their spot in the CS:GO Intel Extreme Masters Finals event, taking place at the Taipei Game Show from the 29th January through to the 2nd February, eSports betting punters can’t wait for this $50,000 event to begin.
Over the past few months there have been six qualification events, each of which has supplied a single team into this finals event to contest against the two directly invited teams, Renegades and CyberZen for the $30,000 top prize.
However that is not all that is available. The winning team will earn a seeding position at the MLG Columbus 2016 Qualifier and also at the IEM Season X World Championship event coming up in Katowice in March.
The runner’s up will earn themselves a tidy $15,000 cheque, plus they will also be a seed at the MLG Columbs 2016 Qualifiers. With seedings at major events coveted in the eSports community, this is not a top prize that the best CS:GO teams in Asia will want to give up lightly.
The six qualifiers from each region that qualified for the finals alongside the two seeded teams were:
- The MongolZ (East Asian qualifying winners)
- Chiefs eSports Club (Oceania qualifying winners)
- TyLoo (Chinese qualifying winners)
- Risky Gaming (Indian/West Asian qualifying winners)
- MVP Karnal (South East Asian qualifying winners)
- Eat You Alive (Taiwanese qualifying winners)
The eight teams have been split into two groups and each team will play the others in their group to decide which are the top two teams in each group that will progress to the semi finals stage. The groups have been drawn as:
- Group A – CyberZen, Chiefs eSports Club, MVP Karmal, Risky Gaming
- Group B – Renegades, TyLoo, The MongolZ, Eat You Alive
Group A will be played to a conclusion on the 29th January, with Group B being decided the following day. The Semi Finals will take place on the 31st January with the final scheduled for the 1st February.
Remember to check back with your choice of eSports betting site to get all the latest odds in what promises to be a hard fought and entertaining event in Taipei this coming weekend.
Captains Draft 3.0 Qualifiers to come to a close for DOTA2 fans
If you have been keeping up to date with these articles over the past couple of weeks, you’ll already be aware that the Captain’s Draft 3.0 Qualification tournament has been under way since the 
19th January and the eight DOTA2 teams that started the qualifiers with hopes of earning one of the two qualification spots in the Finals, have now been whittled down to four.
In the Winners Bracket, the first round of games saw Mamas Boys, Digital Chaos, compLexity and Team Spirit progress into the semi finals. Here Mama’s Boys and compLexity earned victories to earn a place in the winners final which will be contestred on the 3rd February. The winner of this will claim the first of the qualification spots for the Captain’s Draft finals.
The four losers from the first round of games, RoX, STARK, Power Rangers and Steak Gaming battled it out in the first round of the Losers bracket with RoX and Steak Gaming making it into the Losers Round 2. There Rox defeated Team Spirit 2-0 and Digital Chaos bounced back from their semi final defeat in the winners bracket to Mamas Boys, to defeat Steak Gaming 2-1 in the losers round 2.
This means that Rox and Digital Chaos will face off on the 3rd February with the winner heading into the Losers Final to take on the loser of the winners Final (Mama’s Boys or compLexity) on the 4th February. The winner of this final contest of the qualifiers will earn the second qualification spot.
With six teams (Evil Geniuses, Team Empire, Vega Squadrom, Virtus.pro, Team Liquid and Alliance) already invited into the Captain’s Draft Final, the Finals event starts next week on the 5th February and we’ll bring you all the finalised details from what promises to be an intriguing Round Robin stage, followed by a playoffs to decide the winner.
With so many top quality teams in action, betting on this popular event should be hot and punters seeking some quality eSports bets, would do well to see the latest odds on these final few qualifiers over the coming week.
