A total of $50,000 and two spots at the Main Qualifier for the upcoming Major will be, as is usual, up for grabs at the upcoming Asia Minor. The eight regional teams who are in attendance have been split into two GSL groups, which will be played out as a combination of best-of-one and best-of-three matches, with the best two teams from each group advancing to the double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs.

You can see the group draw below:

Group A	Group B
Renegades	TYLOO
Kings	Flash
MVP PK	BOOT-d[S]
TheMongolz	Tainted Minds

Both groups feature two teams from one country, with Australian sides Renegades and Kings in Group A, while Chinese duo TYLOO and Flash are in Group B. Australia is the country with the highest number representatives at the Minor, with Tainted Minds, their third squad, placed in Group B.

Finishing off the list are TheMongolz, who won a Minor in 2016 (IEM Taipei), the veteran Korean squad MVP PK and the Singaporeans who recently attended DreamHack Masters Malmö, BOOT-d[S].

Group A

Renegades (#18)	Age	Rating 2.0
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	19	1.16
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward	25	1.08
Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage	21	1.05
Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis	19	1.02
Karlo "⁠USTILO⁠" Pivac	24	1.01

Offline placings in the last three months
3rd-4th	DreamHack Open Denver
13th-16th	ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier
9th-12th	DreamHack Masters Malmö (4/5)

The winners of the last Asia Minor, Renegades, are looking good for a repeat of their success from this June, when they took down TYLOO for the title in Beijing. The addition of NAF, who filled the spot that was left vacant by Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković, has looked like a good one as the Canadian has been able to fit in the late-round player role and add quite a bit of firepower as well.

Another key player in the squad is Nifty, who already showed what he is capable of when facing Asian opposition at the last Minor, with the in-game leader duties not hurting his fragging output. 

The shotcalling duo of Renegades: Nifty and kassad

We can't draw too much from Renegades's LAN outings at DreamHack Masters Malmö and ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier, as one was with David "⁠Jayzwalkingz⁠" Kempner, and the other was just days after NAF had joined the team, but they showed some promise with a semi-final run at last week's DreamHack Open Denver. They do sometimes struggle to close out maps, though, the semi-final against BIG being a great example of that.

Even with that issue, and jks not living up to his potential recently, Renegades should be able to outclass the opposition at the Minor, both tactically and individually, and at the very minimum, secure a spot at the Main Qualifier—if not win the Minor outright.

Kings (#55)	Age	Rating 2.0
Simon "⁠Sico⁠" Williams	23	1.33
Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas	20	1.29
Jordan "⁠Hatz⁠" Bajic	19	1.15
Chris "⁠emagine⁠" Rowlands	26	1.12
Travis "⁠wizard⁠" Richardson	20	1.09

Offline placings in the last three months
3rd-4th	eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals 2017
2nd	IeSF 2017 Australian Finals
1st	eXTREMESLAND 2017 ANZ Regional Finals
1st	ESL AU&NZ Championship S4 Finals

The second Australian team of Group A got into the limelight after winning the UnikrnTV Australian Showdown over Athletico, Chiefs and Grayhound. Currently spearheaded by 23-year-old Sico, who sits on a stunning 1.33 online+offline rating, Kings have been battling for the #1 spot in Oceania with Grayhound, with Tainted Minds and Chiefs following closely behind.

emagine already attended a Major, ESL One Cologne 2015 with Immunity

Recently, Kings managed to secure the Australian eXTREMESLAND Asia slot and finished top four at the event, losing the semi-final to Flash, and have qualified for the ZEN League S2 LAN finals with an 8-2 record, finishing above all other Australian teams.

Kings are an exciting prospect that could easily make it out of the groups of the Minor. In the playoffs, on LAN, against the best from the region, is where they still have to prove themselves.

MVP PK (#84)	Age	Rating 2.0
Min-Seok "⁠zeff⁠" Park	28	1.21
Hae-Sung "⁠HSK⁠" Kim	23	1.20
Bum-Ki "⁠peri⁠" Jung	26	1.07
Keun-Chul "⁠solo⁠" Kang	29	1.06
Min-Soo "⁠glow⁠" Kim	29	1.05

After MVP Project was dissolved, the veteran squad MVP PK, made of former project_kr members, decided to pick up HSK, the main team's AWPer. The 23-year-old has shortly become a key part of MVP PK, and is the second best rated player, just behind the 28-year-old zeff.

HSK recently made the switch from MVP Project to MVP PK

In recent weeks, MVP PK have earned a spot at the LAN finals of ZEN League, while closely missing out on a spot at IEM Oakland 2017 after losing to TheMongolz in the grand final. The Korean team hasn't been active in terms of LAN events, though, with their last truo being to the finals of the first season of ZEN League, in June, where they finished second to Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand's Recca.

MVP PK are far from a favorite at the Asia Minor, but considering that their group features just one heavyweight —Renegades—, they could have a path to the playoffs. To make it there, the Koreans will have to get some of their better maps, such as Inferno and Train, and have their star duo fire on all cylinders.

TheMongolz (#129)	Age	Rating 2.0
Enkhtaivan "⁠Machinegun⁠" Lkhagva	27	1.16
Temuulen "⁠Zilkenberg⁠" Battulga	26	1.09
Bold "⁠ncl⁠" Batsuh	22	1.05
Tsog "⁠Tsogoo⁠" Mashbat	23	1.01
Erdenedalai "⁠maaRaa⁠" Bayanbat	-	0.90

Offline placings in the last three months
3rd	WCA 2017 Mongolian Qualifier
1st	eXTREMESLAND 2017 Mongolia Closed Qualifier

Despite earning a spot at IEM Oakland 2017, TheMongolz haven't been in stellar form ever since Bat-Enkh "⁠kabal⁠" Batbayar departed the team, in August. Most recently, the Mongolian team finished third in the WCA 2017 Mongolian LAN Qualifier, losing to AGAIN 2-0, and finished last in their ZEN League group with a 1-9 map record, losing to teams who didn't receive an invite for the Minor, such as Recca, 5POWER and NASR.

Despite qualifying for IEM Oakland, TheMongolz aren't performing that well

One of the issues for TheMongolz could be that, since kabal left the team, they have been playing with maaRaa, their former coach. He has been struggling to hold his own in the server and currently sits on a 0.90 rating, with a positive rating in just 35% of the matches.

We didn't have a chance to see TheMongolz at any bigger LAN events recently as they had to skip eXTREMESLAND to sort out visas for the Minor and Oakland, but we already know that the core of this team can perform on LAN, as four out of five member won IEM Taipei 2016, the Asia Minor leading up to the MLG Colombus Major. However, their recent form doesn't give us too many reasons to believe that we will see another Minor victory from Machinegun and co.

Group B

TYLOO (#87)	Age	Rating 2.0
Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand	22	1.28
HaoWen "⁠somebody⁠" Xu	22	1.21
Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk	24	1.07
Hui "⁠DD⁠" Wu	23	1.05
Ke "⁠captainMo⁠" Liu	28	1.03

Offline placings in the last three months
3-4th	EPICENTER 2017 Wild Card Qualifier
5th-8th	WESG 2017 China Finals (3/5)
1st	ROG MASTERS 2017 China Regional Finals (4/5)

TYLOO has been the least active team out of all eight attendees of the Minor, with just 10 maps played in the last three months. The runners-up of the last Minor have been spending a lot of time bootcamping in Europe, where they decided to cut Zhen "⁠HZ⁠" Huang and pick up another international player, bondik.

The addition of the Ukranian, who is on loan from HellRaisers, means that the team will now have to communicate in English at all times, with bondik admitting that the Chinese members still don't have a perfect understanding of the language. We saw proof of that during the EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier LAN, as BnTeT had to play the role of a translator to convey Luis "⁠peacemaker⁠" Tadeu's thoughts to the three long-standing TYLOO members.

At the Russian event, TYLOO were able to put together some decent Terrorist sides, especially considering they were playing against FaZe, but the defensive part of the game is where they struggled, with the language barrier probably playing a big part in that. Making it worse is that the coaching ruleset of the Minor is a lot stricter than that of EPICENTER, which will limit how much peacemaker can help out the team.

bondik will play his first Asia Minor this week

However, TYLOO have a lot going for them as well. Communication issues do not seem to bother BnTeT that much as the Indonesian star has shown that he can frag against the best. The Chinese side can count on him single-handedly win rounds against regional opposition, and with somebody—who is putting up good numbers recently—, and bondik, TYLOO have quite a bit of firepower going for them.

There is also the factor of TYLOO being so inactive recently that teams don't have much to go on while trying to prepare for the match against them. With 10 maps in total, out of which BnTeT played seven and bondik just two, TYLOO will be a big mystery at the Asia Minor. On the other hand, peacemaker will surely have taken a good look at the teams they are likely to face in Korea this week.

All in all, TYLOO are the hardest team to assess at the event, as getting out of a group with Flash and BOOT-d[S] won't be an easy task, but, at the same time, they could easily go all the way if everything clicks.

Flash (#49)	Age	Rating 2.0
YuanZhang "⁠Attacker⁠" Sheng	20	1.34
Andrew "⁠Kaze⁠" Khong	23	1.31
YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai	20	1.25
KunHua "⁠LOVEYY⁠" Bai	28	1.13
QiFang "⁠Karsa⁠" Su	25	1.03

Offline placings in the last three months
1st	eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals 2017
3rd	eXTREMESLAND 2017 China Regional Finals
2nd	WESG 2017 China Finals
1st	CS:GO Super League 2017 - Summer Season Finals (4/5)

After coming together with a lot of hype, Flash left a lot of people unimpressed with their first couple of months. But things seem to be finally clicking, as the trio of Attacker, Kaze and Summer have started performing under the leadership of Karsa.

Attacker could face his former team, TyLoo

The squad recently won eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals, beating all of the best teams at the event along the way. They took down Recca in the group stage, eliminated BOOT-d[S] and Kings in the playoffs and finally defeated Eclipse in the grand final to take the title. Flash proved a lot at that event, and will be looking forward to a potential showdown with their countrymen and rivals TYLOO in the group stage.

With no big slip-ups in recent months and a great LAN outing at eXTREMESLAND, Flash are coming into the Asia Minor with a lot of confidence, and that could be the key for them to take a spot at the Major Qualifier and potentially the title of the best Chinese team.

BOOT-d[S] (#68)	Age	Rating 2.0
Benedict "⁠Benkai⁠" Tan	20	1.13
Nevin "⁠splashske⁠" Aw	18	1.11
Kumaresan "⁠Tommy⁠" Ramani	23	1.05
Anthony "⁠ImpressioN⁠" Lim	21	1.04
Benjamin "⁠moxie⁠" Kou	25	0.98

Offline placings in the last three months
5th-8th	eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals 2017
1st	eXTREMESLAND 2017 Singapore Qualifier
3rd	China Top 2017 Kunshan
13th-16th	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017
3rd	CS:GO Super League 2017 - Summer Season Finals

A stable team for quite a while now, BOOT-d[S] got the chance to attend the Minor after ViCi pulled out due to visa issues. If that didn't happen, the Singaporeans would have missed their second consecutive Minor, despite some solid results in the past three months. Their biggest one was, of course, qualifying for DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 by beating TYLOO in the grand final.

Qualifying for DreamHack Masters Malmö was a big success for the Singaporeans

Despite not being able to do much at the event, BOOT-d[S] got some exposure to Europen CS, as they spent the week bootcamping in Europe. ImpressioN's side have not translated that experience into results though, at least not yet, as they had an underwhelming showing in ZEN League, couldn't do much against Vega Squadron in two series at China Top, and lost to Flash in two key games: in the eXTREMESLAND playoffs and in the grand final of the SL i-League Invitational Shanghai Qualifier.

Still, powered by Benkai and splashske, BOOT-d[S] are capable of doing some damage at the Asia Minor, and potentially even making it to the playoffs, but it would require breaking their negative streak against Flash or an underperformance from TYLOO.

Tainted Minds (#102)	Age	Rating 2.0
Yaman "⁠yam⁠" Ergenekon	28	1.26
Mike "⁠ap0c⁠" Aliferis	30	1.12
Ryan "⁠zewsy⁠" Palmer	20	1.11
Connor "⁠chuch⁠" Morgan	18	1.09
Chris "⁠ofnu⁠" Hanley	24	1.08

The final Asia Minor team are Tainted Minds, built with the core of the former ESL Pro League squad Winterfox. They recently added former Renegades player yam, who is currently their best-rated player, with chuch, who represented Athletico in the past, being the last member of the squad.

yam is back in action with Tainted Minds

This quintet has, so far, only played online and against Australian opposition, which made ELEAGUE's decision to invite them over their countrymen Grayhound or other Asian teams such as NASR or Recca, a controversial one. Tainted Minds have managed some wins over other top-tier Australian teams, but overall they have not achieved much, with their last big LAN win dating back to July, when they won the ~$6,000 AEM Finals playing with former teammates Dylan "⁠kyoto⁠" Brown and Jesse "⁠InfrequeNt⁠" Barker.

Despite the veteran leadership of yam and the ex-Winterfox trio having some experience in the North American top flight, it seems like a place in the playoffs is the best Tainted Minds can hope for at this Asia Minor.