The playoffs, play-offs, postseason and/or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion. Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European football or best-of series in American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament, there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progressing to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs.
There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the single elimination, the best-of- series, the total points series more commonly known as on aggregate, and the round-robin tournament.
A wild card is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way, for example by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wild cards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.
DreamHack Winter 2014 was the fourth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship that was held from November 27–29, 2014 at Elmia in Jönköping. It was organized by DreamHack.
ESL One Cologne 2015 was the sixth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship that was held from August 14–18, 2015 at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne. It was organized by Electronic Sports League. The Cologne event was the first ESL tournament that required competitors to take drug tests, which all came up negative. The tournament had a total prize pool of US$250,000. The online livestream was viewed by around 27 million viewers with a peak of 1.3 million concurrent viewers.
Electronic Sports League Major Series One Katowice 2014, known as EMS One Katowice 2014 for short, was the second Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship that was held from March 13–16, 2014 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It was organized by Electronic Sports League and sponsored by the game's developers Valve Corporation. The tournament had a total prize pool of US$250,000. Virtus.pro was the winner of the event after beating Ninjas in Pyjamas in the finals.
Electronic Sports League One Cologne 2014, known as ESL One Cologne 2014 for short, was the third Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship that was held during Gamescom 2014 from August 14–17, 2014 at the Cologne Exhibition Centre in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was the second CS:GO Major of 2014. It was organized by Electronic Sports League with sponsorship from Valve Corporation. The tournament had a total prize pool of $250,000 USD.
ESL One Katowice 2015, also shortened as Katowice 2015, was the fifth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship that was from March 12 to March 15, 2015 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It was the first CS:GO Major of 2015. It was organized by Electronic Sports League with sponsorship from Valve Corporation. The tournament had a total prize pool of $250,000 USD.
ELEAGUE, shortened as EL, and stylized as ΞLEAGUE is an esports league and American television show that aired on TBS. It was announced in September 2015 as a partnership between Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG. The name "ELeague" was officially unveiled later that year.
ESL Pro League Season 3 was an Electronic Sports League Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament. It was the third season of the ESL Pro League]. The Finals took place in London, United Kingdom from May 11 to May 15, 2016. Europe's regular season began on February 9, with Astralis beating Natus Vincere and ended with Ninjas in Pyjamas defeating G2 Esports. North America's season started with Renegades defeating Enemy (which later signed with Selfless Gaming and ended with Team Liquid defeating Splyce The finals concluded with Luminosity Gaming defeating G2 Esports in a close best of five grand finals, which many consider to be a classic. Teams from two continents, North America and Europe competed in twelve team leagues and play against each other twice to determine the top four teams from each continent that would play in the Finals. The finals will offer a prize pool of US$510,000.
ELEAGUE Season 2 was the second season of the ELEAGUE Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league that ran from October 21, 2016 to December 3, 2016 and was broadcast on cable television on TBS. The season featured 120 teams overall and 16 teams in the main tournament from across the world competing in a seven-week season, which included a regular season and a playoffs. The broadcast was simultaneously available on the online streaming service Twitch.
ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier is the fourth season of ELEAGUE that started on September 1, 2017 and ended on October 13, 2017. It will be broadcast on the U.S cable network TBS. The season features 16 teams from across the world competing in a season, which includes a regular season and a playoffs. The broadcast will be simultaneously available on the online streaming service Twitch and YouTube Gaming, but when on television, a limited broadcast will appear on Twitch and YouTube.
ESL Pro League Season 7 is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. It is the seventh season of the ESL Pro League. Teams from two continents, North America and Europe will compete in fourteen team leagues to attempt to qualify for the Finals. For the first time, the EPL finals returned to a location that had already hosted an EPL final as ESL decided to head back to Dallas and will host the finals at the Verizon Theatre. The regular season started on February 13, 2018 and ended on April 26, 2018. Europe's season started with Astralis overrunning Team LDLC.com. North America's season kicked off with the Season 6 champion SK Gaming edging out the Season 4 champion Cloud9. South America's season began with Dereguedere tying with W7M Gaming. Asia-Pacific's season started with B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape defeating Grayhound Gaming. Asia-Pacific's season ended with MVP PK defeating Grayhound Gaming in three maps to take first seed in the APAC region. South America's season will end with Team Wild taking on W7M Gaming. Europe's season ended with HellRaisers defeating North to take the last European spot in the finals. North America's season ended with Ghost Gaming defeating compLexity Gaming.
ESL One Cologne 2018 was a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. In July 2018, sixteen teams from around the globe competed in an offline (LAN) tournament that featureed a group stage and playoffs with a US$300,000 prize pool. It would be the second consecutive year since Cologne 2016 in which Valve Corporation decided to pass up on the historic tournament series as a Major host in favor of the FACEIT Major: London 2018.
ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018 is the sixth season of ELEAGUE that started on July 21, 2018 and ended on July 29, 2018. It was broadcast on the U.S cable network TBS. The season featured eight teams from across the world competing in a season. The broadcast was simultaneously available on the online streaming service Twitch and YouTube Gaming, but when on television, a limited broadcast appeared on Twitch and YouTube.
The StarLadder & i-League Berlin Major 2019, also known as StarLadder Major 2019 or Berlin 2019, will be the fifteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship. It will be held in Berlin, Germany from August 20 to September 8, 2019. Fourteen teams will qualify for this Major based on their top fourteen placements from the last Major, the Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – World Championship Major, while another ten teams would qualify from their respective regional qualifiers. It features a $1,000,000 USD prize pool and twenty-four professional teams from around the world as with previous Majors. It is also the first time the Ukrainian-based organization StarLadder will be hosting a Major along with its long-term Chinese partner ImbaTV. The Berlin Major will be the eighth consecutive major with a prize pool of $1,000,000 since Valve announced the prize pool increase from $250,000 at MLG Columbus 2016.
ESL One Cologne 2019 is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. In July 2019, sixteen teams from around the globe will compete in an offline (LAN) tournament that will feature a group stage and playoffs with a US$300,000 prize pool. This event and Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV - Chicago will be the last events before teams playing at StarLadder & i-League Berlin Major 2019 take a month break before heading to the Major.
