ELEAGUE Premier groups and schedule revealed
The groups and schedule for ELEAGUE Premier 2018 have been unveiled, seeing the eight attending teams sorted into two groups of four. The $1,000,000 week-long tournament is set to use a double-elimination best-of-three GSL group stage, with matches set to begin on Saturday, July 21st and culminating with the playoffs the following weekend.
A number of roster changes have been made by teams coming into the event, with the most notable moves seeing Tarik "tarik" Celik reportedly make his way off of Cloud9 to join MIBR in place of Ricardo "boltz" Prass.
Taking his place on Cloud9, according to reports from Flickshot.fr and DBLTAP, will be Maikel "Golden" Selim, who will take up the in-game leader role. Martin "STYKO" Styk is also set to return as a stand-in for Pujan "FNS" Mehta, who was benched from the team at the end of May.
FaZe are also set to re-debut with Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, who has been inactive since he took a leave of absence from the team on the unfortunate date of April 1st due to personal reasons. His place was initially filled by Richard "Xizt" Landstrom, with whom the team won IEM Sydney 3-0 over Astralis, but a surprise announcement at the end of May indicated olofmeister was set to return to the team.
Mere days after the annoucement of his return, olofmeister put out a second statement indicating he was not ready to return, and his spot was occupied by Jorgen "cromen" Robertsen for the ensuing three events, with the team taking a 3-2 win over mousesports at ESL One Belo Horizonte.
With olofmeister's return, FaZe will look to defend their ELEAGUE Premier title against the likes of Astralis and Na`Vi, with the latter team falling into the same group as the European squad.
The groups for ELEAGUE Premier are:
| Group A | Group B |
 Astralis |
 Na`Vi |
 Liquid |
 FaZe |
 MIBR |
mousesports |
 Cloud9 |
 fnatic |
And the complete schedule for the event, with times in EDT, is as follows:
| Saturday, July 21st | ||
| 2:00 PM | Astralis vs. Cloud9 |
BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | Liquid vs. MIBR |
BO3 |
| Sunday, July 22nd | ||
| 2:00 PM | Na`Vi vs. fnatic |
BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | FaZe vs. mousesports |
BO3 |
| Monday, July 23rd | ||
| 2:00 PM | Group A - Winners' match | BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | Group B - Winners' match | BO3 |
| Tuesday, July 24th | ||
| 2:00 PM | Group A - Elimination match | BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | Group B - Elimination match | BO3 |
| Wednesday, July 25th | ||
| 2:00 PM | Group A - Decider match | BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | Group B - Decider match | BO3 |
| Saturday, July 28th | ||
| 2:00 PM | Semifinal #1 | BO3 |
| ~5:00 PM | Semifinal #2 | BO3 |
| Sunday, July 29th | ||
| 2:00 PM | Grand final | BO3 |
