North American PC maker IBuyPower has announced its latest Masters Edition Tournament. The iBUYPOWER Masters IV will have a $200,000 prize pool. This is a significant boost to the prize pool from previous editions. iBUYPOWER has been involved with Counter-Strike since quite some time. They were one of the first organisations to have a Counter-Strike Global Offensive team. However, the team ended up associating itself with a match-fixing scandal. The match-fixing scandal resulted in a Valve ban for the players. The indefinite ban still holds for the players and they cannot play in any Valve sponsored events.
The tournament will take place from January 19-20, a two day period. It will see eight teams competing for the total prize pool of $200,000. The venue for the event is the Avalon Theatre, Hollywood. The format for the tournament is a Best of One Double elimination Group stage followed by Best of Three single elimination playoffs. This format is reminiscent of the early years in Counter-Strike. However, there are obvious problems with the format as losing two Best of Ones can result in elimination from the event. However, IBUYPOWER has almost always used this format and they will continue to do so.
IBuyPower’s return to Counter-Strike is good news.
IBuyPower was absent from the Counter-Strike scene for a very long time. Their last event was the iBUYPOWER Masters in 2017. Cloud9 were the winners of that tournament after defeating Renegades 2-0 in the Grand Finals. However, Cloud9 will have a tough time in their attempt to retain their title for iBUYPOWER Masters IV.
The tournament will mostly see the participation from North American teams. If past events are any example then iBUYPOWER Masters IV has always had a focus on North American teams. They have not yet announced any invited teams, however, we do expect news very soon.
