A watch guide to ESL One: New York 2019

ESL One goes back to New York’s Barclays Center from September 26 to the 29 with a $200,000 prize pool and eight teams from around the world. The invited lineup consists of Astralis, ENCE, FaZe, Liquid and NRG, with OpTic, G2 and eUnited joining from the qualifiers.

Image via Liquepedia

Group Stage takes place from September 26 to 27 in a Bo3, double-elimination format split into two groups. The top two teams from each group advance to Playoff Stage, which takes place from September 28 to 29. The Playoffs will be single-elimination with Semifinals being Bo3 and the Grand Final being Bo5.

There are also team changes to look out for. René “cajunb” Borg replaced Ismail “refrezh” Ali in OpTic’s lineup. ENCE benched Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and replaced him with Miikka “suNny” Kemppi. Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey is standing in for Richard “shox” Papillon in G2. FaZe will replace Filip “NEO” Kubski with a currently undisclosed player.

This big event at ESL One New York this time around is the reveal of the de_cache remake. Ten pro players, two of which are TBD, will play a Bo1 showmatch, dubbed “The Freedom Match”, in the world premiere of Shawn “FMPONE” Snelling’s remake of the classic Counter-Strike map. Attendees also receive the official patch notes of the new map and are able to engage in a Q&A section with FMPONE and the map’s original creator Sal “Volcano” Garozzo.

The tournament will also be streamed live on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook.