ESL One Cologne Online: North America - 18.08.2020 - 29.08.2020

ESL One Cologne is one of the yearly highlights in CS:GO, and even if it can't be played in the classic LANXESS Arena this time around, the tournament is one of the biggest tournaments we will see this year. The North American side of the tournament consists of the best America has to offer, besides MIBR, who will play in the European part of the tournament. CS:GO has had a break stretching for more than one month and it’s finally time for world class play to get back on the table. ESL One Cologne NA will feature 8 teams that battle for $135,000, but most of all the glory a title at the legendary tournament means. If you are interested in betting on the tournament we will feature a small preview of the selected odds further down on this page.

Teams attending ESL One Cologne

• 100 Thieves
• Chaos Esports Club
• Cloud9
• Evil Geniuses
• FURIA
• Gen.G
• Team Liquid
• Triumph

Prize pool

• $135,000 total prizes + 1390 ESL Pro Tour points.

Format

Group Stage

• 8 teams divided into 2 groups
• Groups are played with GSL format
• All matches are played best of three
• Two best teams advance to playoffs

Playoffs

• Single elimination bracket
• All games are played best of three, besides the Grand Final
• Grand final is played best of five

Where can I watch ESL One Cologne?

ESL One Cologne is available in English on ESL’s official channel on Twitch. 

Betting on ESL One Cologne

ESL One Cologne is one of the yearly highlights of CS:GO and as such betting on it is offered by every operator who has esports on the menu. To check out our recommended operators you can head over to our reviews.  For long term bets we will have a look at the current odds offered by Bet365. 

• Evil Geniuses - 4.0
• FURIA - 5.50
• Team Liquid - 5.50
• 100 Thieves - 7.0
• Gen.G - 7.0
• Chaos - 9.0
• Cloud9 - 11.0
• Triumph - 17.0

Favourites

The top trio of favourites for ESL One Cologne NA is very obvious, with EG, FURIA and Team Liquid clearly dominating the region for a long time. It needs to be said all three teams have been fairly inconsistent for most of the year, with EG managing to take the top spot with their 5 game win streak to win CS_Summit 6. With that said it’s still hard to argue 4 times the money to be a good bet, as we have gone through a long break and that small upwards trend for EG might as well be gone. If anything we would put our money on the Brazilian side of FURIA, who looked amazing in their wins of ESL Pro League and DreamHack Masters Spring. 

A small dip in form since is not the biggest of worries and 5.50 might be more than acceptable. While Team Liquid has recovered a bit from a quite terrible stretch during spring, it does not look for the former world beaters. In all honesty their odds look to be based more on old results than the cold reality and we would not side with them for the price. The departure of Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella doesn’t help the Liquids road to success either even if Michael “Grim” Wince has proved himself great for his team this far. 

No, none of these top teams makes our fingers itch, but if anything we would take FURIA for 5.50 at Bet365, as it’s slightly better than the 4.0 on EG, despite us agreeing with them being the slight favourites to bring the trophy home.

Challengers

The five teams behind the top trio will have a rough time going all the way in ESL One Cologne NA, that much is for certain. While teams such as 100 Thieves, Chaos and Cloud9 have performed fairly well over the past months they rarely stand a chance against the top teams and in all honesty we count them out of this one. The one team that stands out is Gen.G, who grabbed an impressive second place finish in CS_summit 6. Good results overall and the ability to beat the top teams, especially EG lately, is something that makes Gen.G stand out as the one team to bet on from the outsiders. With that said 7.0 at Bet365 might be right on the edge and if it was a notch or two higher we would feel more comfortable with it.