The Gfinity Arena, located in London, England at the old Vue theater, will host the Call of Duty Gfinity Spring Masters I tournament this weekend. The event comes one week after the Electronic Sports World Cup, which was hosted in Paris, France. A total of 16 teams from around the world were invited to attend and will be split into 4 groups for pool play.
Group A: Optic Gaming, Strictly Business, Epsilon eSports, Gamers2
Group B: Denial eSports, TCM Gaming, Team Infused, HyperGames
Group C: Team EnVUs, Optic Nation, Vitality Storm, FAB Games eSports
Group D: Team Kaliber, Prophecy, MindFreak, Aware Gaming
More information about specific event details can be found in this Gfinity Reddit thread. The first matches will take place on Friday evening, 6 PM BST.
The Gfinity Arena is the first of its kind in the UK, a full-time arena dedicated to eSports. Since its opening this spring, several events have already been held at the famous cinema located in Fulham Broadway. A total of three stages were built into the theater, which spectators can view from the “comfiest seats in eSports”. The schedule for Gfinity Arena is booked every weekend over the course of the summer, with events covering Call of Duty, CS:GO, FIFA, Starcraft, and Hearthstone. The Gfinity Spring Masters I is the first of four professional Call of Duty events on the schedule and will be followed by Spring Masters II in one month and then Summer Masters I & II.
Australia will be represented by MindFreak, who won the APAC Regional Finals in preparation for CoD Champs without losing a single map. MindFreak (BuZzo, Denz, Fighta, Shockz) went on to place 6th overall at CoD Champs, the second time in two years that an Australian team placed in the money at the event. They have been placed into Group D at Spring Masters I, joined by three teams with which they are very familiar. In the loser’s bracket at CoD Champs, Mindreak crossed paths with Aware Gaming and Team Kaliber, beating both teams. They then played Prophecy and were knocked into the 5th/6th place match. Though most rosters have changed since CoD Champs, the MindFreak roster has not, giving them a slight advantage. They will have the opportunity to avenge their loss to Prophecy on the Main Stage Friday evening.
Two stages will be featuring the top matchups at the event, and the Main Stage stream can be found on MLG.tv all weekend.
