With the recently concluded Intel Extreme Master Cologne, fans and players alike were hyped up for a gradual return to LAN, with ‘gradual’ being the keyword. ESL announced earlier today that with multiple countries reporting cases of the delta variant of COVID-19, it would be very risky to host such an event.
More and more countries have been imposing travel restrictions again, to prevent the spread for a second time, and being the global esport title that CS:GO is, it would be extremely difficult to manage this.
Even for IEM Cologne, ESL had to cover leaps and bounds to ensure players could come to Cologne without any problems, stay in quarantine, and prevent contact with other teams and outsiders as much as possible and was a huge success, with no positive cases being reported.
To do that for an event as long as EPL, which usually lasts for 4 to 5 weeks and includes more teams, was not considered optimal. ESL has also announced that their focus is to bring LANs back again later this year, for IEM Fall which is scheduled for late September.
This would take the pressure off from teams like Gambit and Heroic, who despite their commendable performances at Cologne, crumbled under the LAN pressure. They will look to bounce back, once the player break ends to once again establish themselves as world-beaters.
With their thumping win at Cologne, Natus Vincere secured the number one spot in the HLTV world rankings for the foreseeable future.
They have the chance to become only the third team to win the Intel Grand Slam and million dollars in prize money if they win at Pro League season 14, but it won’t be easy as all the top contenders will be present to fight for the title.
Presently, the confirmed entries are –
- Natus Vincere,
- G2,
- Astralis,
- Faze,
- NIP,
- Vitality,
- Mouseports,
- Team Liquid,
- Complexity,
- Evil Geniuses,
- Ence,
- Fnatic,
- Entropiq,
- Renegades,
- Sinners,
- TeamOne, and
- Bad News Bears
The remaining 7 teams will be determined as per the ESL World Rankings as they stand on July 19. EPL Season 14 begins on August 16, 2021, after the player break ends.
