The Counter-Strike and esports scene seems to be getting flooded by more and more tournaments on a daily basis, and today is no different. In case you had missed the original announcement, ASUS Republic Of Gamers have announced they will be running their own tournament called ROG Masters. This tournament will find SIX teams to compete for a grand total of $250,000 total prize pool.
We missed the initial announcement as not much information had really been released (ie qualifier dates or registration links) so we are making up for it now, by giving you all the necessary information for your team to get involved.
What seems a rather complicated qualification process, really isn’t. To put it bluntly, it looks pretty complex, but if you nail down the finer details you realise that it is an incredibly tough route for any team to potentially navigate. There are regional open qualifiers, so the regions being, Asian and Pacific, Europe/Middle & East Africa, and the Americas. Meanwhile, China will only have invited teams to play in a closed qualifier to determine their single entry to the Grand Finals.
There will be a mixture of online only tournaments (presumably for the actual qualifiers before all of the various regional finals) and offline finals. It is open to an unlimited amount of teams, and every team will face stiff competition to get to the Grand Finals. There is no information on where the finals will be held this year, but we will continue to dig deeper and find out from the people behind it.
The Finals will take place in November last year (Photo Credit: ASUS ROG Masters website)
The brilliant thing about this tournament is there will be a UK Only qualifier which grants the chance of a few teams making it to the Regional Qualifier Finals. It is a very clever and unique approach to the tournament structure currently as it gives you the bold impression that anyone can actually make it, but when you realise, actually it is very few that will actually make it in the end to even touch the $250k prize pool.
Here is the original press release from the website:
ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) announced ROG Masters 2017 today. Now a worldwide event due to feature over 20 pro teams from across the globe, the dual Dota 2 and CS:GO tournament has grown significantly in scale and ambition.
After open qualifiers take place worldwide, the professionals will clash with the best of the grassroots for a US$500,000 prize pool. With this almost unprecedented reach, ROG Masters 2017 is set to raise the intensity of the competition and take the Dota 2 and CS:GO scenes by storm. Commencing in May 2017, teams from every corner of the globe will battle it out in a series of 30 country qualifiers and four regional qualifiers (EMEA, Americas, APAC, and China).
The winners of these open qualifiers will then take on the might of invited professional teams from each of the four regions, fighting for a place in the Grand Finals in November 2017. ROG Marketing Director, Derek Yu, states: “For over a decade ROG has been committed to providing the most innovative hardware to gamers worldwide, and last year we offered the gaming community an opportunity to live their esports dream by launching the first ever ROG Masters.
Thanks to extremely positive feedback, ROG Masters returns this year as a global affair, inviting pro teams and amateur players from over 30 countries across five continents.” “We are not only proud of our commitment to creating the ultimate gaming experience with leading hardware and world-class esports tournaments, but also of our solid global network and local presence, which enables us to realize an esports event on such a scale. ROG Masters 2017 is a momentous milestone for ROG and esports, and we are excited be part of the driving force for esports at large,” added Yu.
To find out more information around the actual qualifier layout, you should check this particular page out.
Qualifier #1 for United Kingdom teams takes place over June 29th – July 1st (Thursday – Saturday), it will be single elimination, with best-of-three thrown into the mix.
Here is the particular information:
Sign-up: 13. June – 27. June
Qualifier dates:
Thursday, 29. June – (19:00 BST)
Friday, 30. June – (19:00 BST)
Saturday, 01. July – (13:00 BST) Semifinals & Final (streamed)Format:
Single Elimination
Best-of-Three (Bo3)Prize:
Winner qualifies for phase 2 ROG MASTERS Regional Qualifier EMEA
We will be covering the ROG Masters tournament over the course of the qualifier for the United Kingdom, so make sure you keep in touch with UKCSGO through our Facebook & Twitter pages.
