2022 promises to be a great year for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive fans. Major tournaments are scheduled every quarter and many of them will return to the LAN format. The Elisa Invitational 2021 Winter is a shining example of a tournament that FPS fans and punters will appreciate. If you want to place Elisa Invitational bets on the tournament, these are the key things you must know.
Elisa Invitational Winter Format and Schedule
The tournament starts on March 2022 and it will feature eight teams competing for a prize pool worth $100,000. The main event will be hosted by the Tampere Exhibition and Sports Centre in Finland. For the time being, punters can place Elisa Invitational bets on the qualifiers, which are already in full swing. The best CSGO betting sites have already published the odds and provided ample coverage of the event.
Last year, the tournaments took place online due to Covid-19 restrictions. Juha-Matti Haapala, Chairman of LanTrek announced that the tournament will be hosted in the first week of March. The tournament is part of the Champion of Champions 2021/22 tour which started last year and dished out $2.7 million. It all begins with The Elisa Invitational Winter event which acts as a springboard to the $250,000 Elisa Masters. Later this year, the best teams will lock horns in the Elisa Champion of Champions.
Qualifying tournaments took place in November 2021 in Norway, Finland, and Sweden. At the main event, high-seed invites compete against qualifiers, with a total of 16 contenders. The best eight teams will advance to the playoffs which are scheduled to start on February 12. Bookmakers are yet to publish the CSGO odds for the decisive phase, as they wait on the Main Swiss Stage to conclude. The top four teams will qualify for the Final and will travel to Finland for the main event.
Main Event Prizes and Structure
The eight teams qualified for the Elisa Invitational Winter will be divided into two groups. All will be played in a best-of-one format and the deciding matches will use a best-of-three system. The same goes for the playoffs, where the top two teams from each group will play in the first weekend of March. The semifinals and finals will take place on March 5 when the €100,000 will be divided among top-ranked teams. Winners are expected to walk away with at least $50,000, which is a significant amount. For the time being, the complete prize distribution remains a mystery but details are soon to follow.
There is more than money for Elisa Invitational Winter winners. That’s because, in addition to the 5-digit amount, they will also receive a ticket for the Masters’ competition. This will act as a gateway to the highly anticipated and well-paying Champion of Champions event. Barring unforeseen circumstances, this tournament will also take place in physical format. Elisa Invitational Winter participants will have the chance to remember the thrills of live LAN tournaments much sooner. For the tournament scheduled in March, the organizers have announced that up to 1000 people will be allowed to attend.
Elisa Invitational Winter Favorites
The online tournament is in full swing, and in a few days, we will know the teams qualified for the playoffs. 16 of them compete for eight places and punters can place Elisa Invitational bets on their performance. Only nine of the teams have received high seed invites and they are the more likely to reach the playoffs. Most of the qualifiers have struggled so far, but Savage is the revelation of the tournament so far. The team dominated the Regional Swiss Stage and certainly carried the momentum into the Main Swiss Phase. We expect them to be one of the qualifiers to advance, alongside AGF Esport.
Ecstatic, Eternal Fire, and Sprout received direct invites to this stage of the competition. They met the high expectations and kickstart the tournament with back-to-back victories. Punters shouldn’t expect very high odds if they place Elisa Invitational bets on them but the risks are low. AGO, Dignitas and Entropiq have started the championship slowly and are yet to show their quality in the CSGO tournament. They are nonetheless strong contenders and we expect them to return to their winning ways shortly. Punters should also pay attention to LookingForOrg, the dark horses of the competition were consistently underpriced.