This is our official preview for Group A of ESL One Cologne 2016, featuring Astralis, CLG, Gambit, and dignitas.

As the ninth official CS:GO Major, and the second $1 million Major, ESL One Cologne 2016 builds upon a busy season of CS:GO action by bringing together 16 teams to Cologne, Germany to fight over $1 million and re-establishing the order of top teams in the scene.

The format for ESL One Cologne 2016 is unchanged from MLG Columbus: best-of-one games in the groups with two wins to reach the playoffs and two losses to exit; the decider games for each group will meanwhile be best-of-three matches.

The playoffs will be a single elimination best-of-three bracket and they will be played inside of the LANXESS Arena, which so memorably hosted the ESL One Cologne 2015 playoffs.



Once more the LANXESS Arena will host the ESL One Cologne Major playoffs

We have already set-up a special event page for the Major which is constantly being updated for the latest info going into the Major week. If you haven't seen it already, Group A for the Major is as follows:

Group A Astralis CLG Gambit Dignitas

Initial matchups Astralis Dignitas vs. CLG Gambit vs.

Continue reading for our official Group A preview, with teams being based on their current ranking on our Team Ranking page rather than based off of their seeding order going into the groups.

Astralis (ranked 6th)

Coach: Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen

Team history:

All five of the Astralis players have Major experience, including the stand-in gla1ve who is playing in Cologne in Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye's stead due to the latter player competing for dignitas in the latest European Minor.

The core of this team, device, dupreeh, and Xyp9x, attended DreamHack Winter 2013 under the Copenhagen Wolves banner, all three of the 2014 Majors under the dignitas banner, all the 2015 Majors under the TSM banner, and MLG Columbus as Astralis.

Team captain karrigan had a much more tortuous path on the other hand before he linked up with his current team in late 2014 and elevated their play to the next level. He attended DHW 2013 with n!faculty, EMS One Katowice 2014 with Reason, ESL One Cologne 2014 with CPH Wolves, missed DHW 2014, and has since kept pace with the core three players.

Stand-in gla1ve will be returning to his first Major since 2014: he attended DHW 2013 with n!faculty alongside karrigan, was in Katowice 2014 with 3DMAX, and in Cologne 2014 (again alongside karrigan) and DHW 2014 with CPH Wolves.

The core of this team (excluding newly signed Kjaerbye) had their heyday in 2015, when at times they were considered the best team in the world. Though they have never won a $250,000+ event, they are famously known as a 3-4th place finishing team (and derided sometimes for "choking"), meaning that they were also praised for a high level of consistency.

This team also finished second at the ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, and won a number of smaller events in 2015 (CCS Kick-off Season Finals, FACEIT League Stage 1 Finals, Fragbite Masters Season 4 Finals, FACEIT League Stage 2 at DH Valencia Finals, and PGL Season 1 Finals).

Previous Major cycle:

The core of this team came into MLG Columbus as Legends, as they had finished in 5-8th place at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca while under the TSM name (they infamously melted down against NiP in the quarter-finals despite many considering them outright favourites to win the Major).

MLG Columbus certainly went a tad better for Astralis, who re-branded as a player owned organisation in 2016. They easily progressed out of their group and then took down the then-juggernaut fnatic 2-0 in the quarter-finals. But tragedy struck again for this promising team as they were completely routed by Na`Vi in the semifinals and seemed truly cursed to a fate of 3-4th place finishes.



Not all is rotten in the state of Denmark

Major history:

The three-man core of device, dupreeh, and Xyp9x are among the elite crop of players who have managed to attend every single Major and they have the further distinction of always having exited the groups and thus have either finished in 5-8th place or 3-4th place (four of each finish).

26-year-old karrigan is the only somewhat senior player of this otherwise youngish team and his own history includes three group stage exits with the assorted teams he attended early Majors with. He then missed out on DreamHack Winter 2014 and has since accumulated two 5-8th place finishes and two 3-4th place finishes at the Majors with his current pals.

Finally the 21-year-old stand-in gla1ve has knocked on wood four times, going out in groups everytime. If we want to be technical, he has three 9-12th place finishes and one 13-16th place finish, meaning that his teams often at least won their group elimination match (except at DHW 2014).

Achievements since Columbus:

Currently ranked sixth in the world, Astralis began a downward spiral after MLG Columbus and finished 9-12th place at DreamHack Masters Malmö (a crushing group stage exit after unexpectedly losing to dignitas and then NiP) and 7-8th place at the ESL Pro League Season 3 finals (an early upset loss to OpTic then another crushing loss to Luminosity). Both of these were $250,000+ events.

The Astral-iever in me wants to argue that these were just freak accidents, cases of being too confident against weaker opposition, losing to those opponents, and then having to play the eventual event winners in a decider match. While this is true, there clearly was a larger problem with morale and communication afoot and the team afterwards affected the high profile change: bringing in Kjaerbye in lieu of longtime comrade René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg.



gla1ve acquitted himself well for the old SK at DreamHack Summer

The three offline results since then have been a mixed bag. Astralis topped ELEAGUE Group C with a 5-1 record, only losing a game to SK. Despite a closer-than-comfortable Group final against CLG, they topped their group and are through to the playoffs. Afterwards, a 3-4th place run at DreamHack Open Summer saw an easy group stage for the Danes followed by a close semifinals loss to NiP.

Finally, the $750,000+ ECS Season 1 finals were a devastating defeat as the Danes lost to two North American teams (traditionally an upset scenario), 12-16 to TSM and 0-2 to Cloud9 to exit the eight team event in 7-8th place. This result is arguably among the darkest for the Danes this year.

Make no mistake about it, Astralis are currently falling, albeit gradually.

What to expect in Cologne:

As my Hamlet-referencing caption suggests, I think there is hope for Astralis going into Group A of ESL One Cologne 2016 and more hope than people expect. I actually believe that the team will find themselves playing better (for now) with stand-in gla1ve than they did with young star Kjaerbye, as age and experience have a way of integrating more smoothly into an established gameplan than talent does.

Offline, Astralis' three strongest maps in 2016 are Mirage (81.8% winrate), Overpass (72.2%), and Cache (63.6%). They rarely play Cobblestone and are untested on Nuke like many teams going into Cologne.

Astralis open against dignitas and, aside from the Malmö upset loss, they've consecutively beaten their Danish-Norwegian opponents this year, both offline and online. However, this will be the first time the team will play their old teammate cajunb in an offline match, which could give dignitas an interesting tactical advantage.

With both of these teams looking like they've got a case of the Scandinavian blues lately, I see multiple scenarios budding in the opener: Astralis' heavy hitters (device and dupreeh) faltering, dignitas imploding, etc. It is a risky match to predict but I eventually will give the upper hand to Astralis based on talent alone.

But seeing as how Astralis are clearly superior to Gambit and CLG (beating both teams in 2016 and only losing a map at ELEAGUE to CLG), I still heavily favour them to top this group in the end.

Dignitas (ranked 15th)

Coach: Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due

Team History:

This dignitas team is a wildly mixed bag of both Major experience and history. Since they've often seen their players farmed out to other higher tier teams (Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup, Kjaerbye), it's no surprise there is a certain lack of a core here.

What could be called a core for this team lies in MSL and TENZKI and even they only attended DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca together where dignitas went out in 13-16th place. And TENZKI was only brought on as a hasty replacement for Swede Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg, who helped the team qualify for the Cluj Major, but who stepped down from the team for furtive reasons.

cajunb of course came to the team in May from Astralis in a player exchange which clearly benefitted the latter team more and a final development for dignitas has been the recent addition of early CS:GO veteran ruggah as a coach.

Previous Major Cycle:

The old dignitas lineup were not Legends after Cluj-Napoca but they got an automatic spot in the MLG Columbus Main Qualifier as bottom eight finishers in Cluj and they then famously bombed out following losses to Cloud9 and Renegades (easily the most unexpected failure to qualify for the Columbus Major from that event).

Oddly enough, it was during those early months of 2016 that dignitas were being talked about as a potential top ten team as a result of a few impressive showings: 3-4th place at DreamHack Open Leipzig, 2nd place at the Game Show GEC Finals, and 4th at the ESL Barcelona Invitational. The Major Qualifier self-destruct performance began to reverse these improvements.



RUBINO and his teammates will have to prove they no longer live in a Doll House

Major History:

26-year-old cajunb is by far the team's oldest player and the most experienced as he has attended all eight previous Majors to date. He went out in groups with n!faculty at DHW 2013, reached the semifinals with dignitas at EMS Katowice 2014, went out in groups with CPH Wolves at ESL One Cologne 2014, then returned to his Astralis teammates (who were then dignitas) in late 2014 and has matched their record until MLG Columbus (three 5-8th place finishes and two 3-4th place ones).

Team captain MSL is the next most experienced, with four Majors under his belt. He has the unfortunate distinction of having exited in the groups with every single attempt: with Reason Gaming at DHW 2013, with 3DMAX at Katowice 2014, with myXMG at DHW 2014, and with dignitas at DH Cluj-Napoca 2015.

Both TENZKI and RUBINO hold two Major appearances apiece. The former player went out in groups with CPH Wolves at DHW 2014 and with dignitas at CH Cluj-Napoca 2015; the latter player actually attended his two previous Majors with Norwegian lineups: London Conspiracy at ESL One Cologne 2014 and LGB at ESL One Katowice 2015 (both were group stage exits).

And finally, 19-year-old k0nfig is a complete rookie to the Major circuit; this will be his first Major and he is in general still viewed as an up-and-comer on the European scene.

Achievements since Columbus:

I mentioned earlier how dignitas have reversed their improvements since that sobering failure to qualify for MLG Columbus. They went out in 5-8th place at the small fish Copenhagen Games, showed some promise by finishing 5-8th place in Malmö, finished a measly 5-6th place at the CEVO Gfinity Season 9 finals, and finally won the European Minor to qualify for the Cologne Major qualifier.



How to nitpick: cajunb has a .01 higher rating at Majors than Astralis' highest rated player

The swap of cajunb for Kjaerbye then occurred and dignitas' first achievement was qualifying for ESL One Cologne 2016 in Katowice (a 3-2 record). Despite this success, dignitas gave a poor display in ELEAGUE's Group D, where they lost four of their six group games and then lost to FaZe in the group semifinal. They are the first wholly European team out of the $1.4 million league to date, sitting in 15-18th place.

What to expect in Cologne:

After ELEAGUE, I'm not sure what exactly to expect from dignitas anymore. They showed they could not hang with the likes of fnatic and FaZe (the latter team are currently ranked #16) and nearly lost to TSM. The cajunb addition brought with it experience but it has further dented the team's firepower, which was already lacklustre.

dignitas are very poor on Cache but otherwise the team's tactical and patient approach means they have some pretty solid map winrates in offline 2016 games (66.7% on Cobblestone and 60% on Overpass for example). dignitas also like to play Mirage a lot but it's a questionable choice as they are 9-7 on the map.

I find it odd how the second highest ranked team in this group in our ranking will play the highest ranked, but dignitas fashioned such conditions for themselves by failing to qualify for MLG Columbus and also qualifying for ESL One Cologne as one of the later teams (worse record than Gambit and thus lower seeding).

Despite a likely opening loss to Astralis, dignitas have two offline wins against CLG earlier this year and are likely a more disciplined and steadfast team than Gambit. A group decider duel between dignitas and Gambit is the most likely outcome in my opinion.

Gambit (ranked 20th)

Coach: Alexander "⁠BeAst⁠" Yakovlev

Team History:

Perhaps reflecting the ongoing instability of the CIS scene, this Gambit lineup is a hodgepodge of various corners of that scene and has even changed since MLG Columbus, as Jan "⁠wayLander⁠" Rahkonen went to FlipSid3 and Gambit brought on board 19-year-old spaze.

The core of this team is clearly Dosia and AdreN, with the slightly later addition of mou. The first two have been together for the most part since 2012 (with a couple months' break in 2014) under various banners such as Virtus.pro, Astana Dragons, and HellRaisers. mou joined up with them in HellRaisers in early 2015.

29-year-old hooch, who has been in the scene since the ancient days, joined the picture in time for the team's signing to Gambit in early 2016 and became the captain of the squad. Gambit famously qualified for the Columbus Major against expectations but ultimately crashed out in 9-12th place, which led to wayLander leaving the team and former Method player spaze joining up.

The most notable achievement of this team is either when the old HellRaisers team (Dosia, AdreN, and mou) won the Acer Predator Masters Season 1 finals in 2015 or Gambit's qualification for the Columbus Major which put them on the map.

Previous Major Cycle:

Gambit formed in time to attend the first CIS Minor, which they won, and were thus on their way to the MLG Columbus Main Qualifier. They made quick work of Cloud9 and Renegades (managing to avoid dignitas) and were on their way to the first Major for the Gambit organisation.

After losing to Astralis in their Group C opener, Gambit made history again and eliminated previous Major champions EnVyUs from the tournament in the losers' match, but they were unable to take this momentum further as they lost to CLG 1-2 in the decider match and thus exited in 9-12th place.



The Boyar look suits Dosia well, but the team's old-school approach to CS is less convincing

Major History:

Only 28-year-old Dosia and 26-year-old AdreN have attended more than one Major on this team, with the former having six under his belt and the latter having five. Both of them were part of the Astana Dragons lineup that made the quarter-finals at DHW 2013 and they repeated the quarter-finals feat on HellRaisers at EMS One Katowice 2014 and then went out in groups at ESL One Cologne 2014.

Here the two players' paths diverge slightly as AdreN left the team and thus did not attend DHW 2014, where Dosia and his team made the quarter-finals, but the two players were soon back on HellRaisers for ESL One Katowice 2015, where they went out in groups. The HellRaisers story ended there in terms of Majors and the two would not return until part of Gambit for MLG Columbus.

Both 24-year-old mou and 29-year-old hooch (the event's third oldest competitor in terms of age) attended their first Major in Columbus. The youngster spaze, who is considerably younger than all of his teammates, is also coming into his first ever Major.

Achievements since Columbus:

The award for most reclusive team attending the Cologne Major no doubt goes to Gambit as the team's offline attendance since MLG Columbus has been limited to the ESL One Cologne Main Qualifier in Katowice (where they went 3-1) and ELEAGUE, in which Gambit are currently competing and they took the third seed in Group F at the time this article was being written (and will play their semifinal against Virtus.pro later tonight).



Often billed as the team's main talent, mou fell off his saddle in Columbus

It should be noted that Gambit did not have to play in the CIS Minor as they came into the Cologne qualifier due to a bottom eight finish at MLG Columbus whereas the other Challenger seed in this group, dignitas, had to play in the EU Minor to make it to the Major qualifier.

While I would not say this team have gotten worse since adding spaze, they simply continue to remain that volatile mixture of having raw CIS talent and making mind-baffling overconfidence plays.

What to expect in Cologne:

It is a tricky question then, to expect much of Gambit. There is a general paucity of data for this team going into the Major (which will surely benefit them), although they have particularly strong winrates on Cache and Cobblestone at offline events in 2016 (83.3% and 66.7% respectively).

Gambit will have to play an opener against CLG, to whom the team famously lost the Group C decider in MLG Columbus (making this a bit of a grudge match). However, that was a different CLG, with two different players and a wholly different level of overall cohesion. My money is on Gambit moving into the winners' match.

Here, the aggressive, volatile CIS team are likely to run up against Astralis, against whom they lost a map at MLG Columbus (10-16 on Train). They're likely to lose here too and in the end what I am most likely to suggest is a face-off between dignitas and Gambit in a Group A decider match (the two teams have never played before with their current lineups).

CLG (ranked 22nd)

Coach: N/A (role was held by pita before ELEAGUE)

Team History:

The core of this team (which is tarik, reltuC, and hazed) was part of the mouseSpaz lineup that famously beat iBUYPOWER and Torqued to qualify for MLG X Games Aspen. The rest, as they say, is history and the team soon managed to rise into the top of the North American scene and successfully attend all three of the 2015 Majors.

After Katowice 2015, the team shed Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney and brought on board longtime friend and previous teammate Josh "⁠jdm64⁠" Marzano, who would go on to become one of the team's lynchpins. CLG kept this same lineup until late in 2015, when they parted ways with Pujan "⁠FNS⁠" Mehta and brought in Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina (previously of Liquid).

Despite finally achieving their goal of making it out of groups at a Major at MLG Columbus (a 5-8th place finish), the team were not done reformatting and said goodbye to FugLy. While still looking for a stable team, they have since brought in koosta from Liquid and parted ways with jdm64 and Swedish-Bosnian coach pita will take the fifth slot for the team during the Major.

The most notable success for this team is either making it to Legends status at MLG Columbus or winning the $20,000 WinOut Championship over the old Luminosity team in 2015.

Previous Major Cycle:

CLG's 2015 involved a continual "Challenger" status at the Majors and after Cluj-Napoca they came into the MLG Columbus Major Qualifier where they lost an upset opener to Splyce and then took down SK and Vexed to qualify for MLG Columbus.

At the Columbus Major, tarik and crew took down EnVyUs early on, lost to Astralis in the Group C winners' match, and then edged out Gambit in the decider match. However, two of their players going into Cologne were not part of this action.



North America's stock of taciturn AWPers is rising

Major History:

tarik, reltuC, and hazed have been qualifying for Majors since ESL One Katowice 2015 and bombing out in groups in all of 2015's Majors. 2016 was a watershed moment for the team as they finally attained Legends status after a long road of ups and downs.

AWPer koosta has never attended a Major, as the 20-year-old was famously barred from competing at MLG Columbus for Liquid due to playing in the Americas Minor for Enemy.

And finally, coach-turned-player pita will be somewhat amusingly returning to play in a Major for the first time since DreamHack Winter 2013, where he played on a SK team that got crushed in groups and featured the likes of Marcus "⁠Delpan⁠" Larsson and Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson.

A final point worth noting is that aside from 20-year-olds tarik and koosta, the other three CLG members are on the elder side of the spectrum, with pita being 25 years of age and hazed and reltuC both 27 years of age.

Achievements since Columbus:

One should keep in mind that many of CLG's achievements since MLG Columbus only count for currently 3/5ths of the current lineup. The team first went to the $250,000 DreamHack Masters Malmö and finished in 9-12th place: they obliterated G2, then lost an overtime thriller to Na`Vi (a team who seemingly always arise to frustrate CLG), and were finally eliminated by dark horse GODSENT in a decider match.

The local DreamHack Open Austin was a flop for CLG as they finished in 5-6th place after losing the Group A decider match to rival Cloud9. This period certainly marked a new dip for the team, a worrying sign going into ELEAGUE.



hazed and the CLG core are living through the dog days of their own summer

In ELEAGUE Group C, CLG were finally playing with pita (but still with jdm64) and despite a so-so third seed after the group, they took down SK in the semfinal and also took a map off Astralis in the televised group final; they are therefore through to the Last Chance Qualifier.

They are currently ranked 22nd in our ranking (the lowest in this group) due to old results expiring, a poor form since MLG Columbus, and losing two of their players from earlier in 2016.

What to expect in Cologne:

CLG is one of those teams that lately seems one bad result away from total disbandment, an impression which has certainly been fed by former players reaching out to play on new lineups or former players talking about other players who currently have a wish to leave (to be taken with a grain of salt, mind you).

To even have a chance of survival in this group, CLG will need a hero performance from rifler tarik, good reads and support from hazed and reltuC, and leading from pita.

Most importantly, koosta cannot be given the "Liquid welcome" at all costs. This explosive AWPer functions well when the team allow him to get the picks, rather than being forced into preset roles or made to feel like a secondary tool. Get koosta to go off, and you have half of your work already completed.

A few curious map stats come up for CLG's 2016 offline record, they have a 0% winrate on Cache (0-7) and exactly 50% winrates on every single other map (except for a 54.5% winrate on Overpass and one sole loss on Nuke).

CLG proved to us many times in 2015 and early 2016 that they were a legitimate threat and at times nearly a top ten team. Unfortunately for them, some of that shine has come off by the time of ESL One Cologne.

The ESL One Cologne 2016 Major will run from July 5-10. The first three days will take place behind closed doors while the playoffs will move to the LANXESS Arena, the same venue used for last year's playoff games.

We will continue releasing ESL One Cologne 2016 previews on a daily basis (I will personally also write the Group C preview) and we also have a batch of pre-interviews planned for the ninth CS:GO Major.

The prize-pool distribution for ESL One Cologne 2016 is once again:

1. - $500,000

2. - $150,000

3-4. - $70,000

3-4. - $70,000

5-8. - $35,000

5-8. - $35,000

5-8. - $35,000

5-8. - $35,000

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

9-16. - $8,750

Remember to keep reading HLTV.org in the run up to the Major as we will continue releasing a batch of content up until the day of action commences.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter