Electronic Sports League One Cologne 2014, known as ESL One Cologne 2014 for short, was the third Counter-Strike: Global OffensiveMajor Championship that was held during Gamescom 2014 from August 14–17, 2014 at the Cologne Exhibition Centre in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was the second CS:GO Major of 2014. It was organized by Electronic Sports League with sponsorship from Valve. The tournament had a total prize pool of US$250,000.[1]
The Train map was removed for the tournament, while Cache and Overpass, as well as the Cbble remix Cobblestone were added. Overpass was released by Valve only a month before the tournament, and the decision to add a new map with such short notice and at Major event caused some controversy.[2]
Ninjas in Pyjamas was the winner of the event after beating Fnatic 2–1 in the finals.[3] The tournament was livestreamed on the official ESL Twitch channel. 409,368 concurrent viewers watched the grand finals, while 2,950,600 total unique viewers watched the event across four days.[4]
dAT Team player Egor "flamie" Vasilyev was alleged to have cheated in a qualifier by using an account that may not have been his, due it having an unusually low number of playing hours.[5] Ultimately he was allowed to compete.
The top seven teams from EMS One Katowice 2014 qualified as Legends. LGB eSports would have had a Legends spot as the eighth finalist from Katowice 2014, but disbanded before Cologne 2015.[6] Six teams from Europe, one team from North America, one team from the Oceanic region, and one team from India played online qualifiers in order to play in the tournament
Teams were split into four seeded groups, and all group matches were best-of-one. In the first round of matches, the highest and lowest seeds faced each other, and the second and third seeds played each other. The winner of those two matches then played to determine the first team to move on to the playoff stage, while the losers played to eliminate one team from the tournament. With one team advanced and one eliminated, the final two teams faced off to decide the remaining playoff spot. This format is known as the GSL format, named for the Global StarCraft II League.[7]
The playoff bracket consisted of eight teams, two from each group. All of these matches were single elimination, best-of-three. Teams advanced in the bracket until a winner was decided.
Map Pool[]
There were seven maps to choose from, two more than the previous major. Cache, Overpass, and Cobblestone were added to the map pool and Train was taken out. Before each match in the group stage, both teams banned two maps. The map for the match was then randomly selected from the remaining three maps. In the playoffs, each team first banned one map, then chose one map. The two chosen maps were the first two maps in the best-of-three. If the series were to require a third map, the map was randomly selected from the three remaining maps.
There were 16 teams in the main European qualifier. 4 teams from each regional qualifier – Open, North, Southeast, and Southwest – were in the tournament. The tournament was a best of three, double-elimination bracket. The unshown teams in the Loser's bracket were USSR Team, ESC Gaming, mTw, and tomtebloss.
This was a 16 team, single elimination bracket with just one team qualifying for the playoffs.
NA Qualifier Bracket
Round of 16
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Cologne 2014
Team iBUYPOWER
→
BYE
Team iBUYPOWER
2
devastation
0
Anonymous 5
0
devastation
1
Team iBUYPOWER
2
tNt
0
Team JustUs
0
Defiant Ghosts
1
Defiant Ghosts
0
tNt
2
xero error gaming
0
tNt
1
Team iBUYPOWER
2
LunatiK eSports
0
LunatiK eSports
1
fujiboyz
0
LunatiK eSports
2
Exertus eSports
0
Exertus eSports
1
Mobility Gaming
0
LunatiK eSports
2
Flaming Rainbows
0
Armata Gaming
0
Adaptation
1
Adaptation
0
Flaming Rainbows
2
BYE
Flaming Rainbows
→
Oceanic Qualifier[]
This was an 8 team, single elimination bracket with just one team qualifying for the playoffs.
Oceania Qualifier Bracket
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Finals
Vox Eminor
2
Athletico Esports
0
Vox Eminor
2
Fallen
0
Fallen
2
Qlimax Crew
0
Vox Eminor
2
Team Immunity
0
Team Immunity
2
Control e-Sports
1
Team Immunity
2
Avant Garde
1
auRa eSports
0
Avant Garde
2
Indian Qualifier[]
LGB eSports, which placed third at the previous major, disbanded, so only seven Legends remained. The tournament organizers decided to fill up the remaining spot with a team from India. This qualifier had 8 teams. The teams played in a robin round and the top four teams played in a double elimination bracket. Only the grand final score appears to be found.
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Team LDLC.com
Team Dignitas
Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner
Scott "SirScoots" Smith
Anders Blume
Joshua "steel" Nissan
Epsilon eSports
Ninjas in Pyjamas
HellRaisers
Team Wolf
London Conspiracy
Virtus.pro
Team iBUYPOWER
dAT Team
Vox Eminor
pita
Maniac
GuardiaN
AdreN 
ScreaM, 
kassad