IEM XV Beijing-Haidian is the name of the next event in the Intel Extreme Masters series. Another online event, mind you, but we won’t let latency spoil the fun! If you haven’t gotten used to online events by now, I have bad news for you, friend – we won’t see a lot of LAN tournaments in the foreseeable future. IEM XV Global Challenge is scheduled for December, and that’s about it.

On the bright side, online events aren’t that problematic anymore. The latency has been brought down to a minimum, ddosing rarely happens in top-flight competitions, and the overall watching experience is quite enjoyable.

What’s at stake here’ Well, in addition to $230,000 in prize money, there’s also a ton of ESL Pro Tour points up for grabs too. The two main events have an extra prize too – a ticket to the IEM XV Global Challenge next month. That’s a $500,000 event in which the winner takes $200,000. If that’s not a good motivation, I’m out!

Moving on, IEM XV Beijing-Haidian consists of four separate events, one for each of CSGO’s main regions:

1. Europe
2. North America
3. Asia
4. Oceania

Thirty-two teams will be competing in total; sixteen in EU, eight in NA, and four in Asia and Oceania. All the biggest CSGO teams will be competing in the European event, except EG and Team Liquid which are still on the other side of the big pond. For more information on the money involved in IEM XV Beijing-Haidian, please refer to the following section.

All four events combined have $230,000 in prize money. Yep, that’s a pretty hefty amount in these trying times. But, it’s not all about the money here. You see, the winner of NA and EU events gets an invitation for the upcoming Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge. It’s the highly anticipated LAN event everyone keeps talking about. It’s going to be a grandiose event; a massively lucrative one… and it takes no genius to realize all top-notch teams will want a way in.

Here’s the prize pool distribution for all four events:

• Europe – $150,000
• North America – $50,000
• Asia – $15,000
• Oceania – $15,000

Knowing important information on the participating teams is bound to improve one’s watching experience. It’s even more useful if you’re into betting on esports, although that’s something we don’t promote here at EsportsTalk.

Whatever your reasons may be, here’s everything you need to know about the six biggest IEM XV Beijing-Haidian contestants:

Sixteen teams are going to play for $150,000 at the European event. Out of those sixteen teams, nine have won a notable event this year; another two came very close on several occasions (G2 and OG). Yep, as you’d expect – the European event is going to be one big ball of pure thrill and excitement for everyone involved.

In the next four paragraphs, you’ll find short storylines on the four most interesting EU teams coming into this event. I’m referring to G2, Astralis, OG, and Vitality. I was going to say a few things about Complexity too, how the arrival of jks will give them a proper boost, but given their BLAST Premier Fall performance, I gave Vitality the benefit of the doubt. Here goes nothing!

Astralis finally has a worthy opponent… and I’m talking about real Astralis here, not the substitute roster featuring bubzkji and es3tag. The real Astralis already had their taste of G2 yesterday… and if that match is any indication of the battles to come, we’re in for a proper rivalry.

On one end we have one of the most frightening rosters out there; a roster that packs quite the punch in terms of experience, teamwork, and individual skills. NiKo was just the icing on the cake for the French side… Once again, with NiKo onboard, G2 is a force to be reckoned with.

But, we shouldn’t take the Great Danes for granted. They’re still the greatest CSGO team of all time. They’ve won the CSGO Major four times; three consecutive times since September 2018, with a stellar chance to get the fourth consecutive (fifth overall) Major trophy next year. It would be wrong to underestimate Device and the boys, no matter their recent loss against the new powerhouse G2. Their head to head clashes in the coming months are going to be all the craze. I can’t wait to see them in action on a LAN event; hopefully on IEM XV Global Challenge scheduled for next month.

OG’s roster has been considered a beefy one ever since the org’s venture into the CSGO scene late last year. While they did have a few solid outings, their performances weren’t too out of the ordinary, especially for a brand-new org.

But, as time went on and players slowly started settling in, OG players showed their true strength. They’re yet to win a notable event, that’s true, but they were inches away from winning IEM XV New York, the last IEM event before this one. On top of that, they also had several campaigns that saw them compete well into the playoffs. Semifinal eliminations are nothing to be ashamed of, especially for a team of their stature and age.

Most recently, OG conquered BLAST Premier Fall regular season by defeating S1mple’s NaVi in the grand finals of group A. Valde and the co won in what was a pretty weird match from start to finish. They played well, that can’t go unmentioned, announcing better things to come for the newest EU CSGO org.

Now let’s turn our attention to the other side of the pond. The North American events are typically worse, quality-wise, than their European counterparts. Now that Complexity, MIBR, and FURIA went to play on European events, EG and Liquid are the only two top-tier NA teams remaining in NA. There’s really no other competition to be found unless one of six participating underdogs makes a run for it. Even though that’s highly unlikely, we’d all love to see a proper Cinderella story, right?

Even though Evil Geniuses had won three consecutive events a few months ago, they suffered a catastrophic European campaign and are currently in very rough shape. While I don’t doubt in their ability to qualify for the playoffs, I don’t think they’ll be able to surpass Team Liquid that easily. Yep, I’ve said that knowing well that Team Liquid’s form isn’t much better either.

The boys in blue haven’t won a single event since April. They were the runners-up on three occasions, although that’s not such a big deal considering the level of competitiveness in the region. Their runners-up placements saw them on the receiving end of the likes of FURIA and EG, the only real competitors.

As mentioned earlier, FURIA is not going to play IEM XV Beijing-Haidian. That’s one less worry for the boys in blue. If they come out of the group stage unscratched, they should have enough fire left in them to beat Evil Geniuses in the playoffs.

We were just about to wrap up our IEM XV Beijing-Haidian preview, but we figured we haven’t told you anything about the schedule. So, here’s the opening round info on both NA and EU events:

Friday, November 6^th

• Team Vitality vs. Team Spirit – 3 p.m.
• Faze Clan vs. OG – 6.30 p.m.

Saturday, November 7^th

• MAD Lions vs. NaVi – 3 p.m.
• Complexity vs. Fnatic – 8.30 p.m.

Thursday, November 12^th

• Heroic vs. North – 3 p.m.
• G2 vs. NiP – 6.30 p.m.

Friday, November 13^th

• Astralis vs. ENCE – 3 p.m.
• BIG vs. Mousesports – 6.30 p.m.

• Liquid vs. Rugratz – Nov 6, 10 p.m.
• Whalers – Chaos – Nov 7, 10 p.m.
• EG vs. Rebirth – Nov 12, 10 p.m.
• Triumph vs. oNe – Nov 13, 10 p.m.

That’s all for today folks! Hope you’ve enjoyed our IEM XV Beijing-Haidian preview; we also hope the action exceeds everyone’s expectations!