The group stage draw for Operation Kinguin #2 has been made, and two of UK’s more noticeable teams have made the cut and reached the group stages. Eight groups of four teams have been drawn, with a total of 32 teams. All teams will be competing for a share of the pot which is $20,000.
The competition of which will follow the usual event specific of the GSL format but with Best-Of-Three in the group stages to determine which eight teams will go through to the single elimination bracket.
Throughout the closed qualifiers, the UK had three teams in action, with fm-eSports, nerdRage and Team Infused. Two of the UK sides were drawn together, as fm-eSports & Team Infused tried to battle it out in the group stages. fm-eSports started in impressive form, beating the Norwegian side Lions 16:9 on de_cobblestone, whilst Infused suffered a bit of a setback when they lost to LowLandLions 16:12 on de_dust2. Â Of course in the GSL format, the losers then play against each other, and unfortunately for Team Infused, they were ditched out of the qualifiers by Lions 16:12 on de_cache.
fm-eSports had to play LowLandLions to determine who would head into the bracket, and they beat the Dutch side 16:11 on de_cobblestone. Meanwhile in the other group, nerdRage beat eSuba 16:14 on de_dust2 and then went on to beat Polish side Refuse 16:13 on de_cache.
With the brackets in play, both UK sides had a real chance of making the group stages. Of course both sides needed one best-of-three win to progress, nerdRage managed this feat by beating Lions. However they had to find a way from a map down after losing 16:11 on de_mirage, but they soon composed themselves on de_cobblestone with a squeaky 16:14 result, and then finally seeing off the Norwegians 16:13 on de_cache.
fm-eSports however ended up losing to the French side, Platinium, 16:11 on de_overpass and 16:13 on de_cobblestone. As it was a double elimination bracket, fm-eSports had to play against Lions, and made it seemingly comfortable with 16:11 on de_inferno & 16:13 on de_mirage, thus securing their place in the group stages.
The Groups
Group A
| Nation | Team Name |
 | CSGL |
 | Gambit |
 | Temp.no |
 | fm-eSports |
Group B
| Nation | Team Name |
 | E-Frag |
| Team YP |
 | CSGO.One |
| nerdRage |
To see the full group draw then visit this helpful link: Click Here.
The competition begins tonight at 5pm GMT with the winners match on Wednesday January 20th at 5pm GMT. To follow all the action, it will be on Ding.IT which will require you to install a plugin.
