FISSURE Playground 1 is an S-tier tournament with a prize pool of $1 million. It will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, from July 15 to July 20. It will be the first after the summer break since BLAST.tv Austin Major. Sixteen teams will be featured, and since most of the elite-level teams decided to skip this event due to a schedule conflict with the IEM Cologne 2025, we will have a chance to witness a new tournament champion this time.
Contents
Tournament Format
Group Stage
- Four double-elimination format (GSL) Groups
- Each group has 4 teams
- All matches are Bo3
- Top two teams from each group advance to the Playoffs
Playoff Stage
- Single-Elimination bracket
- The Quarterfinals & Semifinals are Bo3
- The Grand Final is Bo5
Groups & Teams
| FURIA | Virtus.pro |
| HEROIC | Astralis |
| GamerLegion | paiN |
| TyLoo | Lynn Vision |
| BetBoom | MIBR |
| Complexity | 3DMAX |
| Rare Atom | SAW |
| Wildcard | BIG |
Favorites and Underdogs
Top Contenders
- FURIA
- Virtus.pro
- Astralis
- HEROIC
- GamerLegion
- paiN
Given that only one team ranked in the top ten will be present at this event, we could experience numerous surprises during both the group and playoff stages.
FURIA is the only team from the top 10, according to HLTV team ranking. Considering that, it would be easy to say that they’re the favorite to win this tournament. Still, it might not be the case, as teams like Virtus.pro, Astralis, HEROIC, GamerLegion, and paiN are also attending the event, and they have had some success at the big tournaments in the past, so that we would put these five teams above the rest. Especially paiN, if they can keep the level that we’ve seen on the BLAST.tv Austin Major, then they’re the ones to call a title contender.
Dark Horses
- TyLoo
- Lynn Vision
- MIBR
- BetBoom Team
- 3DMAX
As for the dark horses of this tournament, they will be TyLoo, Lynn Vision, MIBR, and BetBoom. The first two teams are from different part of the world and might surprise any team with their play style, as they have had some success in the past. MIBR, BetBoom, and 3DMAX have strong and experienced players who can fight any team on a good day.
The rest of the teams will be the underdogs. Compared to the teams listed above, they don’t have that much experience, and they’re yet to prove what they’re capable of at such a big event. Even though most of them had attended similar events before, they barely had any success.
Underdogs
The rest of the teams will be the underdogs. Compared to the teams listed above, they don’t have that much experience, and they’re yet to prove what they’re capable of at such a big event. Even though most of them had attended similar events before, they barely had any success.
How to Watch
You can watch all the matches live on these FISSURE streaming channels on different platforms:
| FISSURE Official Twitch Primary Stream |
| FISSURE Official YouTube Stream |
| FISSURE Official Twitch Secondary Stream |
Two streams will cover matches happening simultaneously in the group stage (from July 15 to July 17). The playoffs (from July 18 to July 20) will be one stream, as one match will be played at a time.
We will return our match predictions for the playoff stage, so stay tuned and check our CS2 prediction page!
