The draw of the European Masters competition has been announced

The European Masters competition

This year, the competitive scene in Europe is getting a brand new competition – the European Masters. The European Masters represents a pan-European tournament in which the best teams from the regional leagues across Europe will compete against each other for a share of the 150,000 EUR prize pool.

FORMAT

The first edition of the European Masters (EM) features teams from every European Regional League announced earlier this year, Open Qualifier winners from EUW and EUNE and a few teams you might recognise from Challenger Series. In addition, 6 ERL winners from summer 2017 are also included. That brings to a total of 26 teams heading into the tournament.

The 26 teams participating in the spring EM are split as follows:

12 teams in EM Play-in. Top 2 teams advance to the Group Stage
16 teams in Group stage – 12 teams advance to the Knockout stage

In the group stage, teams will play a single round robin Bo1 within each group to determine the top two teams. These teams will then advance to an 8-team single elimination bracket to see how they stack up against other groups and to find the two best teams in the Play-in, which will then advance to the second stage of the European Masters. The first round of the bracket will be Bo1, while the second round will be Bo3.

Similarly to the Play-in stage, in the Knockout stage, teams will play a single round robin Bo1 in their groups, to determine the top 3 teams that will move to the Knockout Stage. The top team of each group will receive a bye to the quarterfinals, while the second and third place teams will play each other to determine who advances. All rounds of the Knockout Stage are Bo3, and the finals are Bo5.