ESL One New York 2018 is set to begin on Wednesday, Sept. 26 until Sunday, Sept. 30 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The tournament is highlighted by seven teams that were at the FACEIT major in London and a $250,000 prize pool.

The ‘Play or Bench’ series is where I will discuss teams I’m high on or low on as they enter a tournament. Teams that I am high on will be considered ‘Play,’ while the teams I am low on are ‘Bench.’

The format for ESL One New York 2018 consists of two stages, the group stage, and playoffs. The group stage is two double-elimination format groups. Each group has four teams, and the teams are seeded based on the ESL CS:GO world rankings. All the matches within the group stage are best-of-three. The top two teams from each group advance to the playoffs. The playoffs are a single-elimination bracket. The semifinals are best-of-three, while the grand final is a best-of-five.

ESL One New York 2018 features eight teams – FaZe Clan, Fnatic, Gambit Esports, G2 Esports, mousesports, Natus Vincere (Navi), NRG Esports, and Team Liquid. FaZe, Fnatic, G2, Team Liquid, mousesports, and Navi were invited to the tournament. Gambit and NRG won the European and North American qualifier, respectively. NRG is the only team not to compete at the recent major in London.

Group A of the tournament is made up of Navi, mousesports, Fnatic, and Gambit. Navi plays against Gambit in the initial match, while mousesports competes against Fnatic. Group B features FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, NRG, and G2. FaZe Clan opens up against G2 and Team Liquid plays NRG in the first matches of the group.

ESL One New York 2018 – Play

Navi – Adding second-ranked Navi to the ‘Play’ section was one of the easiest decisions. The Ukrainian side finished second at the FACEIT Major in London, after dropping in the finals to top-ranked Astralis. Navi has won ESL One: Cologne 2018, CS:GO Asia Championship 2018, and StarSeries & i-League Season 5 earlier this year. Navi is led by electronic, who ranked as the top player at the London major according to HLTV. As long as his partner in crime S1mple can perform in the finals, Navi is a heavy favorite at ESL One New York 2018.

Team Liquid – Picking third-rank Team Liquid over fourth-rank FaZe was one of the toughest decisions for this article. Team Liquid ended up edging out FaZe because of their performances at the FACEIT major. Team Liquid went undefeated in the first two stages and then defeated HellRaisers in the quarterfinals. The North American team ended up getting knocked out in the semifinals to the eventual champions, Astralis. Team Liquid is led by Canadian Keith “NAF” Markovic, who ranked as one of the top players at the major according to HLTV. NAF had a 1.21 k/d ratio with a 47.5 headshot percentage. Team Liquid will make it out of the group stage and if they get a favorable matchup in the semis, expect them in the finals.

ESL One New York 2018 – Bench

Gambit Esports – Although Gambit did avoid what I consider the “group of death” for the tournament, they’re still a bench team. Gambit made it to the FACEIT major in London but was quickly knocked out with a 1-3 performance. Their only win came against Renegades but lost to TyLoo, HellRaisers, and BIG. Outside of qualifying for the tournament, Gambit hasn’t given anyone enough confidence to expect them to make it past the group stage.

G2 Esports – G2 is considered a bench team for two reasons. The first reason is the group they got placed in. G2, the 12th-ranked team according to the ESL rankings, will have to defeat either Team Liquid or FaZe clan to advance to the finals. That is a hefty task for them to complete. The second reason is their performance at the major. G2 was knocked out 2-3 after dropping matches to compLexity, MIBR and FaZe Clan in the New Legends stage. G2 might get a win out of NRG, but defeating FaZe or Liquid in a best-of-three might be too much.

Conclusion

It’ll be interesting to see if fatigue plays a factor in the teams’ performances. The final stage of the FACEIT major was only last weekend, and a few of these teams competed then. There was very little time to recover.

However, the event should be a lot of fun to watch because of these top-level teams competing. The tournament features five teams from the top eight teams on the ESL rankings.