The HP Omen Challenge Starts Soon, Can Amateurs Surprise the likes of NiKo and S1mple?

by Pavo Jurkic in CS:GO | Sep, 9th 2019

With the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 done and dusted, there’s a whole heap of highly anticipated events coming in September. Alongside BLAST Pro Series Moscow and ESL One New York, there’s an awesome little event that starts on 20th September, and it goes by the name Omen Challenge. Surprisingly enough, not a lot of people know about it. In fact, if it weren’t for HLTV covering the recruitment phase a few days ago, I would’ve totally missed it.

The thing is, this is not your usual team-based CS:GO event. Nope! Omen Challenge is a special one, featuring four-man deathmatch seeded matches before the headliner 1v1 games. Those will be real spectacles, especially considering the fact that there will be two amateur players competing head to head with some of the biggest individual stars of the CS:GO scene.

Yep, you read that correctly, HP Omen will feature two amateur players with $50,000 on the line. What an experience this event will be for those two lucky contestants…

Spicing Things Up with Amateur Players

Best of all – those two selected players will attend a 2-day bootcamp where they’ll spend time with zonic and the rest of Astralis roster. Who knows, perhaps an afternoon with dev1ce and the boys is enough for those lucky amateurs to surprise the likes of NiKo and S1mple on the main Omen Challenge event!

The qualification process started on September 1st when CS:GO players had the chance to submit their matchmaking replays via OMEN Challenge 2019 Steam Group. The bootcamp is scheduled for 11th and 12th September, while the amateurs’ training story will go live on September 18th, just two days before the start of Omen Challenge.

Omen Challenge Starts on September 20th

Yes, Omen Challenge starts on September 20th. It’s a one-day event we’re talking about here, featuring a heap of top-tier players, including 2018’s top guns like s1mple, NiKo, electronic and device. While it’s not getting that much public exposure at the moment, I’m sure it’ll stir some dust once the bootcamp training stories go live to help build up the hype.

Either way, I still reckon we will be up for a proper CS:GO festival. Unless HLTV and HP Omen disappoint us, which is highly unlikely.