The Thunderpick World Championship is upon us. There’s plenty of Counter-Strike talent on display from every region in the game. The top teams will be descending on Berlin to fight it out for the prize pool.
Teams taking part
Organizers GRID kept us in suspense until the very last moment but as the tournament started, we finally got a full line up of participating teams. If you’ve been watching CS this year, you’re likely getting a bit bored of watching Navi make it to every grand finals there is. But now, another team will get their chance in the spotlight.
Invited Teams
Eleven teams were directly invited to participate in the tournament:
- BIG
- Team Falcons
- Fnatic
- HEROIC
- Virtus.Pro
- 3DMAX
- 9z Team
- Aurora Gaming
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- OG
- The MongolZ
Qualified Teams
A further 5 teams have already had to battle their way through open and closed qualifiers over the last few months. Now, they’re ready to fight again:
- M80
- Cloud9
- Legacy
- Imperial Esports
- BESTIA
Why won’t BLEED Esports attend the Thunderpick World Championship?
BLEED Esports has been at the center of a controversy lately. The CS roster accused the org of leaving them unpaid for months on end. The team themselves still intended to play the tournament until coach Kassad announced at the last moment that they wouldn’t be able to play the opening games due to one of the players’ flights being delayed.
We are unable to play @thunderpickco event tomorrow since jkaem flight is delayed and he cant make it to the first game.
Also we are not continuing with h4rn.
Rest of us are staying together and looking for an org to represent.
— Aleksandar Trifunovic (@kassad) October 20, 2024
But once the games came round, Unpaid (formerly BLEED) were removed from the tournament entirely and replaced by OG. To say this happened at the last minute would be something of an understatement, with the announcements happening on the very morning of the first games.
It’s not uncommon for tournament organizers to have back up teams waiting in the wings in case something like this happens. It’s likely OG have been preparing for this situation and are now ready to step up to the plate.
Players and stand ins
Unless you’re a die hard CS fan, there’s likely some unfamiliar names on this list of teams. BESTIA are playing their first ever S tier tournament after defeating Fluxo in the finals of the qualifiers. This makes them something of an unknown entity and perhaps unpredictable.
Cloud9, on the other hand, is armed with brand new talent from HeavyGod, ICY and Interz. While these players haven’t had a tonne of time to figure out how they work together but there’s a definite chance of fireworks here.
The GOAT stepped up
There are plenty of heavy hitters on this list but none more so than Falcons’ stand in s1mple. The Ukrainian legend is currently on loan from Navi but has been notably missing from the last year of pro CS. While s1mple himself only took one map to warm up to competitive play, he rather left his teammates in the dust.
As individually talented as he is, the rest of the team weren’t able to work around the strategies and they were eliminated from the tournament with a slightly embarrassing 36-52 scoreline after decisive 2-0 defeats against 3DMAX and Virtus.Pro.
TPWC prize pool
The total prize pool for the Thunderpick World Championship is $850,000. Only the top 8 teams will see any of the prize money though and the rest of the teams that place 9th-16th will have to go home empty handed. The full breakdown is as follows:
1st place – $500,000
2nd place – $150,000
3rd place – $70,000
4th place – $50,000
5th-8th place – $20,000.
Where are the Thunderpick World Championship playoffs?
The Thunderpick World Championship playoffs will be held with a live audience in Berlin, Germany. This isn’t the first time Berlin has hosted a top tier esports tournament, having seen the ESL One Berlin Major for Dota 2 last year but this will be the first S tier Counter-Strike event in the city since the Starladder Major back in 2019.
The LVL Dome Arena will play host to the top 4 teams who make it all the way through the group stage and the quarterfinals on November 2nd and 3rd.
