ESL Challenger Atlanta groups revealed

This morning, ESL announced the groups for the upcoming ESL Challenger Atlanta. M80 and Complexity will be the two North American representatives in the event as they hope to win a trophy on home soil. Complexity has been drawn in Group A with GamerLegion, Apeks, and TheMongolz, while M80 is in Group B alongside Monte, Virtus.pro, and BESTIA.

Complexity is the #1 seed in the event and was invited to the tournament, while M80 is the 6th seed out of eight teams and got here after winning the North American qualifier against Evil Geniuses. This is the first time Complexity will play an American LAN with Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, and the first time ever that M80 will play in front of North American fans.

ESL Challenger Atlanta features a $100,000 prize pool, and the eight teams will have to go through a GSL format group stage where the opening and winners matches are Bo1 and the elimination and decider matches are Bo3. After the group stage, the playoffs are a simple single-elimination bracket where all series are Bo3.

The last ESL Challenger was rough for Complexity, finishing 5-6th in Melbourne. The team has improved ever since, adding EliGE and finding great success, especially in LAN events. With a grand final appearance in IEM Sydney and a semifinal loss against FaZe during the BLAST Premier Fall Final, Complexity is looking like the favorite to win the event.

As for M80, the squad recently suffered one change in the AWP department, with Adam "WolfY" Andersson being replaced by Fritz "slaxz-" Dietrich. M80 won the most recent ESEA Cash Cup and breezed past their opponents during the qualifiers for the ESL Challenger Atlanta. Although the team looks strong against domestic opposition, it still remains to be seen if the same translates to the international scene.

The ESL Challenger Atlanta groups are: