ThunderPick World Championship 2023 Team List Announced

By Tit Krajnik

11 Oct 2023

Tit Krajnik 11 Oct 2023

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ThunderPick World Championship 2023 is set to start on October 27, 2023
16 Counter-Strike teams
$500,000 prize pool

ThunderPick World Championship 2023

On Wednesday, October 11, ThunderPick World Championship 2023 tournament organisers announced that six more teams have been invited to the tournament. With that, the team list for the Counter-Strike 2 tournament is finalised.

As revealed by ThunderPick World Championship 2023 tournament organisers, Team Liquid, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, FURIA Esports and FaZe Clan have all been invited to compete in the Counter-Strike tournament. The six squads will join two previously invited teams in Cloud9 and Heroic as one of eight directly invited teams for the $500,000 event.

With Team Liquid, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, FURIA Esports and FaZe Clan accepting their invitation, the list of participating teams for ThunderPick World Championship 2023 is complete, and the tournament is ready to begin on October 27, with the first round of the group stage.

Besides the eight directly invited teams, ThunderPick World Championship 2023 will also welcome MOUZ, BIG, Team Spirit, SAW, Wildcard Gaming, M80, Complexity Gaming, and Nouns Esports, who secured their tickets for the tournament through qualifiers.

The qualifying process for ThunderPick World Championship 2023 was distinctly different from other Counter-Strike tournaments. It handed out four invites through qualifiers to North American teams and four to European teams, giving NA teams an equal chance to represent their region.

Of the four spots available for North American teams, the first two got picked up by Wildcard Gaming and M80, who won the first qualifying event. Nouns and Complexity collected the final two by placing top-two at Thunderpick World Championship 2023: North American Series #2 in late August.

The four qualified North American teams will be joined by Team Liquid, the only NA squad to receive a direct invite to the tournament. ThunderPick World Championship 2023 will mark Liquid's first tournament with Damian "daps" Steele taking over the in-game leader role from Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis, who played his last tournament as team captain at BLAST Premier: Fall American Showdown 2023.