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The Intel Extreme Masters, or IEM, is a series of events featuring a variety of games in various cities around the world. This week will feature Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO, and the IEM debut of Player Unknown's Battle Grounds, or PUBG. Both tournaments start at the Intel Esports Arena in Oakland and end this weekend at the Oracle Arena, home of the NBA's Golden State Warriors.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person shooter, focusing on military-style shooting and strategy to defeat opponents. There are two teams of five, with different objectives. The Terrorist side's objective is to plant a bomb at a pre-determined site on one of the various maps available on the game.
The Counter-Terrorist side's objective is to defuse the bomb before it detonates. Once the bomb is detonated, the Counter-Terrorist side will have 40 seconds to defuse it or the round would go to the Terrorist side.
The round can also be won when an entire team is killed before the bomb is planted. The kills that are obtained reward virtual money to the winning side or player with the premise of buying weapons, armour or grenades to use in the game. The game is played in the best-of-30 rounds format with each team playing the role of Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist, at most, 15 times apiece.
The first team to reach 16 wins wins the match. In case of a 15-15 tie, a 6-round overtime is played, with both roles being played three times each. The first to reach four wins in that period will win the match, while a 3-3 tie would send the match into another overtime which would keep going until a winner is declared. Each team will perform a strike ban on a map until there is one map remaining.
Player Unknown's Battle Ground is a survival-based game. Players will be dropped on an island and will rely on what weapons they can find there in order to survive. The last person standing will win the game. This game can be played in the first-person and third-person. At IEM, the game will be played in squads, or 4-person teams. The last team standing will win. The teams will have to be careful, since there is friendly fire.
At this year's CS:GO IEM tournament, 12 teams have been separated into two groups. Group A contains SK Gaming (Brazil), Cloud 9 (US), Ninjyas in Pyjamas (Sweden), Astralis (Denmark), The MongolZ (Mongolia) and Tean EnVyUs (France). Group B has Faze Clan (Europe), G2 eSports (France), Gambit eSports (Russia), Team Liquid (US), Renegades (Australia) and Optic Gaming (Canada). Renegades entered the tournament after the Immortals withdrew.
In this Round Robin Format, each team will face the others once with the top team from each group reaching Saturday's semifinals. The 2nd place from Group A will face 3rd place from Group B and 2nd place from Group B will face 3rd place from Group A in their playoff games on Thursday. The semifinal matches and Sunday's final will be played at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. The Round Robin stage are all best-of-1, while the Playoffs and semifinals are both Best-of-3 and the finals are Best-of-5.
In Tuesday's action, the tournament started off with SK Gaming getting a 22-20 overtime win over Team EnVyUs on the Cobblestone map. There were three other overtime periods, Team Liquid being involved in two of them - a 19-17 win over the Renegades on Cache and a 19-16 win over Gambit eSports on Mirage. Gambit eSports were also involved in a second overtime to close out the night with a 22-19 loss to G2 eSports.
After the first night of CS:GO action, some teams had played three games while others played only two. Group A standings are SK Gaming 3-0, Cloud 9 2-0, Ninjyas is Pyjamas 1-1, Astralis and EnVyUs tied at 1-2 and Team MongolZ in last place at 0-3.
Group B standings are Faze Clan at 3-0, Team Liquid 2-0, Optic Gaming at 1-1, Renegades and G2 eSports tied at 1-2 and Gambit eSports rounding off the table at 0-3.
The biggest win of the night went to Faze Clan with a 16-3 thrashing over Optic Gaming on Overpass.
Matches resume at 2pm Eastern Standard Time on ESL's CS:GO Twitch Channel.
