ESL One Cologne

Lore & Background

Eight teams were in the playoffs. Fnatic, Luminosity Gaming, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team EnVyUs, Team SoloMid, and Virtus.pro were returning Legends. Team Kinguin was the only new Legend in the tournament, replacing mousesports, which failed to make the top eight. Fnatic, which defeated Luminosity Gaming and Virtus.pro, was the winner of the event after defeating Team EnVyUs, which defeated Natus Vincere and Team SoloMid, 2–0. Fnatic was the first team to have consecutive major titles and would be the only team to do so until SK Gaming (which was Luminosity Gaming at this tournament) when the Brazilian team won MLG Columbus 2016 and ESL One Cologne 2016.

Reader's Guide

The top eight teams from ESL One Katowice 2015 ("Legends") received direct invitations to Katowice. In addition, eight other teams (the "Challengers") emerged from offline qualifiers: four from the European qualifier, two from the Asian qualifier, and two from the North American qualifier. Teams were split up into four groups, and all group matches were best-of-ones. The playoffs bracket consisted of eight teams, two from each group. All of these matches were best-of-three, single elimination. Teams advanced in the bracket until a winner was decided.

Did You Know?

• The Cologne event was the first ESL tournament that required competitors to take drug tests, which all came up negative.
• Flusha was named the most valuable player of Cologne 2015.
• Nuke was taken out of the active map pool and Train was brought back in for the first time since the second Major, EMS One Katowice 2014.