WESG Africa & ME Finals set to start

The LAN Finals for the African and Middle Eastern part of the WESG qualifiers are set to start in Dubai, with eight teams in competition for the three Global Grand Finals spots.

The WESG Africa & Middle East Regional LAN Finals, that are taking place form the 26th to the 28th of August, are a part of the qualification cycle for the $1.5 million WESG Global Grand Finals, which will take place at a yet unconfirmed location in China.

The teams competing in the regional finals have earned their spot through four sub-regional online qualifiers that were held earlier this month. With a lot of internationally unproven players at the tournament, Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş' Space Soldiers are the prime favorite for the title - and the $30,000 that come with it.

The fact that the WESG's date coincided with the ESEA Global Challenge caused Bravado some problems as they were initially planning to attend the event in Poland, but visa issues resulted in them going to Dubai after all. 

ELUSIVE disclosed that Bravado planned to attend ESEA GC LAN instead of WESG

Viva Algeria is another team that had trouble making it to Dubai and ended up being replaced by Damage Control that finished third in the South African qualifier.

The groups are as follows:

Group A	Group B
Space Soldiers	DarkPassage
carboN	Bravado
Chosen5	Swift
Damage Control	FENNEC

The groups are not going to be played in the standard GSL system, with the organizer deciding on a best-of-one Round Robin format instead. The first two teams from each group will proceed to the play-off stage, where a classic best-of-three bracket will be played - with a third place match to decide the last LAN spot.

The full schedule is as follows:

Friday, August 26th
08:00	Space Soldiers	vs. Damage Control	BO1
09:00	carboN	vs. Chosen5	BO1
10:00	Bravado	vs. Swift	BO1
11:00	DarkPassage	vs. FENNEC	BO1
12:00	Damage Control	vs. carboN	BO1
13:00	Space Soldiers	vs. Chosen5	BO1
14:00	Swift	vs. FENNEC	BO1
15:00	DarkPassage	vs. Bravado	BO1
16:00	Swift	vs. DarkPassage	BO1
17:00	Bravado	vs. FENNEC	BO1
Saturday, August 29th
10:00	Space Soldiers	vs. carboN	BO1
11:00	Chosen5	vs. Damage Control	BO1
12:30	Semi-final #1		BO3
15:30	Semi-final #2		BO3
Sunday, August 28th
11:30	Third place decider		BO3
14:30	Grand final		BO3

The CS:GO action will be streamed on two channels: WESG Main, where the most important matches of all four WESG esport titles will be shown, and StarLadder_EN, where the rest of the matches will be streamed.

The whole event will be streamed in three languages: English, Chinese and Russian, with the English duo Tom "Tombizz14" Bissmire and Ryan "Flakes" Oliver commenting from the venue - the Conrad Dubai Hotel.

The prize pool will be distributed in the following way:

1. $30,000
2. $18,000
3. $9,000
4. $6,000
5-8. $3,000 

Damage Control #148 Riaan 'stYle' van NiekerkJannie 'Hellhound' van NiekerkTyrone 'Explicit' LautreChristopher 'Apocalypse' LautreHarry 'inciN' Apostoleris Time is adjusted to your selected timezone Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş Age: 21 Team: Space Soldiers Rating 1.0: 1.26 Maps played: 284 KPR: 0.89 DPR: 0.70 carboN Dominic 'Domsterr' SampaioJan 'takbok' TheronJandre 'makmuR' van VuurenRieghardt 'flexeeee' RomatzkiDaniel 'spoof' van Wyk DarkPassage #90 Kerimhan 'kero' DumanÖzgür 'woxic' EkerBuğra 'Calyx' ArkınUfuk 'SasuKe' GöktaşBora 'Maiko' Igci FENNEC #145 Naim 'Jada' ChikhiTaibi 'Lyhn' YoussefNacim 'GGta' KhalfiSmouun 'a1RO' Abdel HakimRamzi 'RobbeN' Khider Chosen5 #105 Mohammad 'Zerocool' Ahmad Issa Al-AdwanMohammad 'Foolz' Subhi Tawfiq Abdel-RahmanIssa 'ISSAA' MuradOmar 'VIPPEER' AdwanOmar 'hunt3rr' Sami Viva Algeria #86 Mohamed 'zboub' NouarNabil 'natsu' BadiKamel 'MLK' AissaTarik 'tarik' Agaba Bravado #79 Roberto 'blackpoisoN' Dall'OccoDimitri 'Detrony' HadjipaschaliRuan 'ELUSIVE' van WykAshton 'Golz' MullerAran 'Sonic' Groesbeek Swift #113 Ali 'st1cker' Al-MehairiObaid 'breAker' Al-MuhairiKhalid 'KarriBob' Al-JunaibiMohammed 'k1tkat' Al-NuaimiRashid 'Morpheos' Almehairi Space Soldiers #22 Ismailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşEngin 'MAJ3R' KüpeliÇağatay 'DESPE' SedefAhmet 'paz' KarahocaEngin 'ngiN' Kor