In July 2017, sixteen teams from around the globe competed in an offline (LAN) tournament that featured a group stage and playoffs with a US$250,000 prize pool.
In addition, this Cologne event was the first ever Cologne tournament to not host a major as Valve decided to pass over the historic tournament series in favor of the PGL Major.
ESL invited twelve teams to compete in the tournament.
The group stage was a sixteen team Swiss tournament.
The playoffs was an eight team, single elimination best of three bracket, but the grand finals was a best of five.
In the second round, the winners in the first round will face each other in the "high" matches, in which teams with a 1–0 record will play against each other; the losers will face each other in the "low" matches, in which teams with a 0–1 record will play each other.
The winners of these matches will qualify for the major and the losing teams will be eliminated.