In July 2019, sixteen teams from around the globe competed in an offline (LAN) tournament that featured a group stage and playoffs with a US$300,000 prize pool.
FURIA made a big run from the loser's side, defeating Bad News Bears, Team Envy, compLexity, and Lazarus to face off against Ghost.
However, both Chinese teams fell as ViCi was edged out by B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape (B.O.O.T-d[S]) of Singapore and TyLoo was taken down by MVP PK of South Korea.
TyLoo stormed through the loser's side of the bracket, only to be stumped by MVP PK once again, allowing the Koreans to attend just their second premier tournament of the year.
Both teams bounced back and met in the finals, where Liquid swept G2 to take the last spot at Cologne.
However, led by Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's 32 kills, Natus Vincere (Na`Vi) pulled a massive comeback to take the game 16–14.
FURIA Esports was the team that ended Astralis's Nuke win streak, but NRG came prepared on the same map, as it took a 13–2 lead and closed out the game with relative ease.
However, s1mple got greedy with his team in a 3 vs.1 man advantage against Liquid's captain Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella and went for a knife, but instead nitr0 went on to clutch the round.
In two relatively close maps, NRG knocked FaZe to the lower bracket behind Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte's 47 kills.
On the loser's side, MVP PK looked to surprise, but mousesports but an end to it as it easily eliminated the Koreans.
FURIA advanced with a sweep against the Renegades with Andrei "arT" Piovezan raking a massive 58 kills.
FURIA looked to have another Cinderella run as it did in Esports Championship Series Season 7, but Na`Vi put an end to that after two very close maps.
MIBR's struggles continued despite bringing in Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles from Luminosity Gaming as Fnatic's 12–3 lead proved to be too much.
ENCE also suffered from disappointment as it could not figure out the firepower of Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut and the tactics of Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt.
Heroic was able to knock out BIG from the tournament, resulting in Fatih "gob b" Dayik and his team not able to appear in front of its home crowd.
NiP gave Astralis a bit of trouble, but the Danes were able to regain form and took the top seed in group B.
On the loser's side, the inconsistent Heroic gave Vitality a run for its money, but the French were able to hang on to head to the Lanxess Arena.