Ten of the twelve teams for Logitech G Play Connect have been confirmed, with B8, Team Liquid, GamerLegion and Ninjas in Pyjamas among the organisations already locked in, HLTV reports. The tournament is a $100,000 Counter-Strike LAN scheduled to run in Warsaw, Poland from September 17 to 23.
Play Connect is a tier-two event ranked on the Valve Regional Standings, the system that governs invitations to Counter-Strike's larger tournaments. Four of the ten confirmed organisations have been named so far, which leaves six invited teams still unannounced alongside the two places that have yet to be won.
How the last two places are decided
The remaining slots run through qualification rather than invitation. A closed qualifier is scheduled from August 27 to September 5 and will field 24 teams, with the eight highest-ranked entrants seeded directly into that qualifier's playoff stage. Two of the 24 places are open to the wider field through an open qualifier on August 22. Two teams will advance out of the closed qualifier and into the main event, completing the twelve-team field.
Qualification therefore spans more than two weeks, from the open qualifier on August 22 to the closed qualifier's final day on September 5. That leaves twelve days between the moment the field is settled and the first day of play in Warsaw.
The main event format
The twelve teams are split into two groups of six, each played as a round robin of best-of-one matches. That gives every team five group-stage maps, each of them a single map rather than a series. Three teams from each group advance to the playoffs, which are staged at the EXPO XXI venue in Warsaw.
Group winners advance directly to the semi-finals. The six qualified teams therefore form a bracket in which the four second- and third-placed sides play an opening round and the two group winners enter a round later, so the top seed in each group reaches the final on one fewer win than the teams beneath it.
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