One of the biggest tournaments in CS:GO is approaching, and it will start on the 11th of March. World Electronic Sports Games 2018 will gather teams from all around the world, and here is all you need to know about this event.
History of World Electronic Sports Games
WESG has always been a huge event with a huge prize pool. It was held two years ago in the Chinese city Changzhou for the first time. Therefore, this is going to be a third World Electronic Sports Games event in CS:GO. It always takes place in a different city in China and this year, the host city will be Chongqing.
If you are wondering why there is the year 2018 in the name, it’s probably due to a time when Qualifiers are played, as most of them are played last year. Last two years, the prize pool of the CS:GO event was 1.5 million dollars, which was one of the biggest prize pools in the history of CS:GO. However, this year, the prize pool of World Electronic Sports Games is significantly smaller.
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The reason behind that is probably the lack of the best players and teams in the event. That further causes fewer viewers and generally less interest of the fans and sponsors. Accordingly, the most logical question is why top teams are not interested in competing at WESG? Well, the reasons are many.
Frequent Visa problems and poor conditions
Considering that a completely different regime is in power in China, it’s not easy to get Visa for that country. On top of that, Esports still hasn’t reached the fame of traditional Sports. Therefore, if you say that you are a player of Cloud9 or Natus Vincere, it doesn’t mean much to authorities and government in China. Last year, five teams withdrew from the event and two of them did so due to Visa issues. It’s possible that the other three teams withdrew due to Visa issues as well.
In addition to that, players were complaining about conditions at the event so much last year. They were particularly complaining about living conditions in hotel rooms. According to their words, you could see cockroaches, dust, and mold everywhere. On top of that, the water was brown. Hence, it was quite disappointing to see such poor conditions at a 1.5 million dollar event.
Plus, the trip costs are not negligible and only the Top 8 teams are going to get any prize money. So, this tournament is part of a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
Format and rules
When we say that World Electronic Sports Games is one of the biggest CS:GO tournaments, we mean it literally. It gathers 32 teams from each corner of the Earth. At least, it is supposed to gather that number given that we always see some teams quitting the event due to many reasons.
The path from the first match to LAN event is so long and uncommon. Organizers separated all contenders into four divisions according to continents (Europe, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Africa). In addition to that, WESG has one separated Qualifier only for teams from China.
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Those divisions are further separated by regions and even countries. For example, in Europe, we have North-West Europe Qualifier, North Europe Qualifier, Serbia Qualifier, Poland Qualifier and so on. And then, some of those Qualifiers have two or more Open Qualifiers and one Closed Qualifier event. It sounds complicated, and it really is. As a result, it’s not so uncommon seeing some newly formed squads for the first time at World Electronic Sports Games. That further indicates frequent ending scorelines like 16-1, 16-2 and similar in favor of Top Tier teams.
When all is set and done, and when we finally get 32 squad names, they are competing according to the following rules. Teams are playing against each other in eight Round-Robin Groups. All matches are Best-of-2, so draw results are possible. The best two teams in the group are continuing forward to Single-Elimination Bracket when all the matches are Best-of-3.
Where to watch and prize money distribution
All CS:GO fans who want to watch Live Streams can do it for free. If you want to enjoy English commentating by SPUNJ, stunna, and others, you can do it here. On the other side, if you are from China, and may not have access to Twitch. Then this is the right link for you.
When it comes to money distribution, it’s quite uneven. The best team of the event gets more than half of the total prize pool. Teams who don’t reach Quarter-Finals don’t get a single penny. Here is how organizers distribute money:
- 1st place – $500,000
- 2nd place – $200,000
- 3rd place – $100,000
- 4th place – $50,000
- 5th-8th place – $10,000
Past champions
Although we said that World Electronic Sports Games lacks the best teams in the world, it still features some of the Top Tier teams. In 2017, Team EnVyUs was victorious beating Team Kinging 2-0 in the final. The legendary team, Virtus.pro won third place that year in a match against Space Soldiers.
Who will take part in WESG this year?
WESG 2018 was quite promising before withdrawals started happening. However, due to some reasons, we will not watch Ninjas in Pyjamas and ENCE who should have competed in China. But they canceled the participation perhaps because of a tight schedule. Both NiP and ENCE played late phase of IEM Katowice, and WESG is just around the corner.
But, if nothing changes in the next two days, we will have an opportunity to watch teams such as G2, MiBR, OpTic Gaming, and Fnatic. The most interesting Group is most likely going to be Group B where Valiance, NASR eSports, Denial Esports (with old Bravado squad) and OpTic Gaming will play against each other. The most boring Group will undoubtedly be Group C where MiBR and AGO Esports already secured places in Play-off Stage given that k23 and Isurus Gaming withdrew from the event.
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