HCS Global Invitational hosted by Spacestation Gaming Starts Today
(Gray News) - Spacestation Gaming is hosting an HCS Global Invitational at The Depot in Salt Lake City this weekend. Twelve teams, five international and seven from North America will duke it out to claim as much of the $125,000 prize pool as possible.
Pool Play starts Friday, Aug. 4, and it consists of four groups of four teams that will compete in a Single Round Robin. Each match played will be a best-of-five. At the end of Pool Play, the top two teams from each group will enter the Upper Bracket side of the Championship Bracket. Teams finishing third in their group will move to the Lower Bracket, while teams finishing fourth get eliminated from the tournament.
On Saturday, the Championship Bracket will start with the first games of the Upper Bracket. Matches will be played with teams either proceeding through the Upper Bracket or fighting for survival in the Lower Bracket. Sunday is Finals day, with both Upper and Lower Finals played to figure out who will get to compete for the majority of the hefty prize pool at the end of the day in the Grand Finals.
So what teams are competing, and what pools are they in?
POOL A
| TEAM | REGION |
|---|---|
| FaZe Clan | NA |
| Complexity | NA |
| G1 | NA |
| Mindfreak | ANZ |
Pool A is an exciting group because FaZe Clan has become a team with high fan expectations. They have dominated the HCS this season and are among the few teams, if not the only team, that can go toe to toe with OpTic. Complexity has seen mixed success this season, making it to playoffs in both majors but not placing above the seventh-eighth place position. G1 also made it to playoffs in both majors, with their highest finish being fifth-sixth in the Charlotte Major. Mindfreak is one of the strongest teams in their region, but they still need to get past an Open Bracket in a major.
POOL B
| TEAM | REGION |
|---|---|
| Spacestation Gaming | NA |
| Native Gaming Red | NA |
| BitterSweet | NA |
| Cruelty | Mexico |
Pool B has the host of the Global Invitational, Spacestation, who are expected to place in the top two of the group. Spacestation placed third in the Charlotte Major and lost to FaZe in the Grand Finals of the Arlington Major, finishing second. Native Red is another team that consistently makes the playoffs at majors but has failed to reach the top four. BitterSweet is still a relative unknown this season as they have only competed at the most recent major and the last Global Invitational. They managed to make playoffs at both of those events. Cruelty is a definite unknown as this is their first large tournament of the season.
POOL C
| TEAM | REGION |
|---|---|
| Quadrant | EU |
| Cloud9 | NA |
| Native Gaming White | NA |
| The Last Dance | EU |
Quadrant is the team to watch in this Pool. They finished the most recent major in Arlington in third place. They are a dynamic squad that can throw a wrench in the plans of many top teams. Cloud9 and Native White can hold their ground when in top form. Both have consistently made the playoffs in majors, with Native White notably taking fourth in the Charlotte Major.
POOL D
| TEAM | REGION |
|---|---|
| Sentinels | NA |
| OpTic Gaming | NA |
| Shopify Rebellion | NA |
| NAVI | EU |
OpTic has been dominant in the HCS, winning three of the last four majors, including the HCS World Championship last year. They had a tough finish at the Arlington Major, though, only finishing in fifth-sixth place. Sentinels are OpTic’s most prominent opponent in this group. Sentinels took fourth in Arlington and can’t be overlooked. Rebellion is another squad that is consistently in the hunt but still has some work to do regarding larger events.
To watch all the HCS action over the weekend, tune in to either the HCS Twitch stream or the HCS YouTube broadcast. Broadcasts of the HCS Global Invitational by Spacestation Gaming start every day this weekend at 2 PM EST / 1 PM CST / 12 PM MST / 11 AM PST.
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