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London, August 27, 2019: FACEIT, the world’s leading competitive gaming platform and organisers of some of the largest esports events in Europe and North America are pleased to announce the full 32 teams set to compete in the ECS Season 8 Pinnacle Cup from September 11-13. Sixteen teams based in both Europe and North America respectively have now been determined in Open Qualifiers alongside the reveal of the sixteen powerhouse teams who have been directly invited by FACEIT. ECS Season 7 concluded in June and both grand finalists, French trailblazers Vitality and Brazilian underdogs FURIA were competitors in last season’s Pinnacle Cup.
The full lineup of teams who will head into battle in the ECS Season 8 Pinnacle Cup are:
EU Invited:
forZe, CR4ZY, Heroic, GamerLegion, Windigo, Tricked, Sprout, Team Spirit
EU Qualified:
Se7en Esports, Ambush, Espada, BIG Clan, Team Heretics, BLUEJAYS Sports, Chaos EC, m1x
NA Invited:
Riot Squad, Sharks, Team One, New Identity, Bad News Bears, Renegades, Envy, Big Frames
NA Qualified:
The Quest, Lazarus, KC Pioneers, RGB Esports, Rap Gang, ATK, Oceanus Gaming, Peekers Adv
The ECS Season 8 Pinnacle Cup will be broadcast as part of the Community Caster Challenge exclusively on Caffeine, which invites up and coming commentators to stream their commentary on Pinnacle Cup matches and during the Regular Season, with the best rising stars from Europe and North America winning an invite to the Season 8 Finals. The Community Caster Challenge marks the continuation of FACEIT’s commitment to working with and developing grassroots talent and saw previous winning duo Alex "Hawka" Hawkins and Adam "Dinko" Hawthorne go on to commentate at the ECS Season 5 Finals. The winner will be selected by CS:GO casting legend James Bardolph.
The ECS Pinnacle Cup is the second stage in the newly revamped ECS format introduced for Season 7 and will determine teams’ seeding in the upcoming Regular Season which will run from September 16 to October 31 and decide the eight teams who will travel to North America for the Season 8 Finals. The new format was developed alongside the community to tackle oversaturation in the CS:GO calendar, while still giving the best opportunity for open qualification to the top level. Pinnacle is the Official Betting Partner for ECS Season 8.
