ECS Season 6 Finals Schedule, Live Stream, How to Watch
The ECS Season 6 finals schedule is on the horizon. Eight of the world's best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams, culled through qualifiers across Europe and North America, will descend Thursday on Arlington, Texas with $660,000 lies at stake, waiting for the best team to claim its share.
Here's everything you need to know about the ECS Season 6 finals, from how and when to watch to which CS:GO teams are competing.
When Does it Start and When Does it End?
The ECS Season 6 finals are scheduled to begin Thursday, Nov. 22 at 10 a.m. ET. New matches will begin every hour and a half that day until 9 p.m. ET.
Matches Friday, Nov. 23 will start at the same time, 10 a.m. ET, and wrap up at the same time, 9 p.m. ET, but the day's best-of-three series are scheduled to take three hours each.
Saturday will get underway at 1 p.m. ET and wrap up at 6 p.m. ET. The tournament's final day of competition, Sunday, will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET with the Texas Collegiate Showdown, followed at 1:30 p.m. ET by the Movember ECS Showmatch. The tournament will conclude with the grand final, which starts at 4 p.m. ET ends at 7 p.m. ET.
How to watch ECS Season 6 Finals?
FACEIT, the tournament's organizers, will run two streams through YouTube. The FACEIT channel will play host to the English language stream, and StarLadder will put on the Russian language stream.
ECS Season 6 Finals Schedule
Group A
Astralis vs. Cloud9, 10 a.m. ET Thursday
mousesports vs. MIBR, 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday
Winners, 4 p.m. ET Thursday
Losers, 10 a.m. ET Friday
Elimination match, 4 p.m. ET Friday
Group B
NRG vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas, 1 p.m. ET Thursday
Team Liquid vs. North, 2:30 p.m. ET Thursday
Winners, 7 p.m. ET Thursday
Losers, 1 p.m. ET Friday
Elimination match, 7 p.m. ET Friday
Who's Competing?
The eight teams at the event are split into two groups of four. Group A includes Astralis, mousesports, MIBR and Cloud9. Group B holds NRG Esports, Team Liquid, North and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
What Format Will ECS Run?
The tournament will begin with double elimination GSL style groups. The initial matches of each group will be best-of-one series, followed by best-of-three series. The two teams with the best records in each group at the end of the group stage will advance to the playoff stage.
In the playoffs, teams will play best-of-three series in a single elimination bracket to determine the winner.
What are the Storylines to Watch?
With Astralis at the event, the number one question will be whether the Danes can continue their utter domination of the CS:GO scene. The team most recently swept Team Liquid to take home the IEM Chicago trophy, and it'll look to repeat its victory at the previous ECS final Sunday.
Its closest competition at the event is likely mousesports, but last year's runner up Team Liquid will also look to unseat Astralis.
Cloud9 will also look to prove itself worthy of attending, as it only received its spot in the tournament when Renegades failed to secure visas to attend. It will also be Fabian "kioShiMa" Fey's debut as an official member of the Cloud9 roster, where he must fill the hole left by Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham's departure.
Photo courtesy of ECS