After the Christmas break, the ESL Major Series of Counter-Strike: Source is live again.

In the final stage of the competition eight teams will fight in a double elimination tournament, which will finally crown the EMS champion for the third season.

The total prizemoney is €3,000, with €1,500 going to first, €900 to second and €600 to third.

Four teams qualified directly to the playoffs as a result of coming first in their groups, these teams are: VeryGames, ROCCAT, RedLine and mTw.

VeryGames won their group pretty easily, beating opponents such as Veritas, Banned Brigade and Illusion. They also beat Reason Gaming, even though the Czech team played with STR instead of WT, due to the ban. They are actually the main favourite team, and with no doubt one of the top 3 in Europe, as our last Top10 says.

The Danish team ROCCAT had to play only three matches in the groupstage, due to the left of two teams. The only tough opponent was hoorai, but they didn't have too many troubles in beating them.

A lot tougher was RedLine's passage: in group C they had to face up against ALTERNATE and forZe, but they easily beat both teams with a large score. They've also won against overGame, Cubesports.AMD and Tera-Gaming.

And last but not least, we have the German team mTw, the title-holders. They are at the moment the best team in Germany and also the only one in the Cadred Top10 (5th). In the Group D they had to beat the former Crack Clan team, the Russian duo EYEsports-RuSh3D and the Italian team Inferno eSports.

The other four teams are coming from the Relegation, they are: forZe, ALTERNATE, Veritas and Reason Gaming.

Reason Gaming is the other big favorite for the victory. In the groupstage, as we said above, they've been beaten by VeryGames but they played without WT, who's now able to play. In the Relegation they easily overcame hoorai with the score of 16-6.

Veritas is the underdog of the competition: in the groupstage they lost against Reason and VeryGames but they managed to get the third spot, going to the Relegation, where they beat the French team INCOMING (formerly known as oneway) in a close match. In the English EPS they ended third, losing against ZEN, FM!Toxic and 4Kings.

Team ALTERNATE came second in the group C behind RedLine. They secured the second place winning against the Russian team forZe, who came third, 17-13. In the Relegation, the Germans had no problems against Inferno eSports, winning the match with a 16-9.
With a similar score, the Russians beat in the Relegation the then French team Crack Clan and went into the final stage.

Having done this little introduction, we can now show you the brackets. As you can see, the tournament promises very interesting matches, so don't miss out our coverage and match ticker on the right.