Skyesports Masters 2024; Schedule, Teams and Format

One of the most popular esports tournament organizers in India, Skyesports is set to host an A-tier Counter Strike 2 tournament ‘Skyesports Masters’. The event will feature eight teams, five of which received a direct invitation.

The event comes as part of Skyesports’ announcement to host multiple global Counter Strike 2 tournaments last year in December, featuring a combined prize pool of $1 million. This comes as a way to revive the Indian Counter Strike esports community and give them exposure on an international stage.

Originally, there were six invited teams including Team Liquid, however, they were invited to the IEM Chengdu after Complexity dropped out, giving the remaining slot to the BetBoom Team.

Here are all the teams competing -

Gods Reign - Indian qualifier 

BetBoom Team - European qualifier 

FORZE Esports - European qualifier 

OG - Invited

Ninjas in Pyjamas - Invited

ENCE - Invited

BIG - Invited

Aurora Gaming - Invited

Format

The matches will be played in a double-elimination bracket starting April 8. All teams will be starting in the upper brackets, with matches played as best of three till the Upper and Lower bracket finals. The grand final will be played as best of five.

Skyesports Masters also brings a massive prize pool of $350,000 with the winner taking home $105,000. The winner will also secure a direct spot in the upcoming Skyesports Championship 2024 in India.

Here are the opening matchups -

April 8 - ENCE Vs FORZE Esports

April 8 - Aurora Gaming Vs OG

April 9 - BIG Vs BetBoom Team

April 9 - Ninjas in Pyjamas Vs Gods Reign

Matches to be held online

The tournament was originally planned to be held on LAN in India, however, Skyesports have shifted the matches to online due to upcoming elections in India. The statement came in the last week of March.

“After careful consideration and exploring all possible alternatives, we have reached the extremely tough decision to cancel the LAN component of the Skyesports Masters 2024 Main Event. With the Indian General Elections set to begin in April, it has proved extremely challenging to obtain the necessary approvals for hosting a large-scale on-ground event,” the official post from Skyesports said.

Since most of the teams are from the European region, Gods Reign will also reportedly move to Europe for the tournament in order to overcome the latency issue during the matches.