It actually happened, despite ruminations regarding whether or not Chaos would be able to enter into the tournament based on points that ESL One uses for the Counter-Strike scene.
This morning, ESL One confirmed that Chaos EC has made it into the ESL One Cologne Online tournament as they hammered out the finer details of precisely what teams are making it into the upcoming Intel-sponsored battle that, despite rumors and ESL working the logistics, is now taking place entirely online due to COVID-19.
Chaos has been making a name for themselves recently, ironically thanks mostly to MIBR and fans throwing a massive fit when they were upended by Chaos in prior showings. The upending resulted in various users and notable names within Brazilian esports repeating clips as proof that Chaos was cheating: a claim that never came to fruition despite multiple users attempting to replicate the events with cheating software.
This has, amusingly, seemed to only pour more fuel onto the proverbial fire as multiple Chaos users needed to privatize their social media profiles to dodge an absurd number of death threats that came from MIBR fans; as appears to be a tradition for MIBR.
Chaos squeezing themselves into the bracket for the North America Counter-Strike gives them a shot at the lion’s share of the $135,000 prize pool while finally getting an opportunity to strut their strategies and skills against some of the best NA has to offer: Team Liquid, 100 Thieves, and Evil Geniuses.
Yet the surprises don’t stop there; in fact, they’re dwarfed by the token bad-guy of the professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, MIBR, getting slotted into the European bracket where the prize pool is a much larger $325,000 due to the number of teams that will be competing.
While some may be quick on the proverbial trigger to note that MIBR have arguably struggled in recent showings, failing to qualify for the Major in Brazil, this is a fantastic opportunity for MIBR to show that they’re more than competent to go against some of the best teams in the world.
With Astralis, BiG, Faze, and a dozen other massive names in contention, MIBR has their work cut out for them to make an impact; if they can up-end some of the bigger names, they can finally silence the critics that state that the best years of MIBR have been long past.
That said, it’s a massive shame that these names won’t be going head to head on an international scale; it could be fun to watch MIBR square off against Chaos once again, if for nothing else but the drama that permeates esports.
