UPDATE (September 11th 2020): 2v2 CSGO competition Red Bull Flick is coming to the UK, with the first national qualifier taking place on September 12th.
Red Bull Flick gives amateur players the chance to show off their Counter-Strike skillset playing in new Red Bull custom-designed maps. The winner of the Red Bull Flick UK final will earn a coaching session with one of CSGO’s biggest stars.
For the first stage of Red Bull’s CSGO tournament, over 19 countries are hosting standalone competitions including Germany, France, Croatia and the UK.
The UK qualifier is open for sign ups on FACEIT here.
Duos of players will face off in a new game mode: Hold the Flag, where players display their dominance and defend a flag zone for 45 seconds to win a match.
Three UK qualifiers have been announced, which will all take place on FACEIT. They will take place on September 12th, October 17th and November 7th, all at 12pm BST.
A separate EU Invitational took place last month – more details on that below.
Original article (published August 4th 2020):
British CSGO players Owen ‘smooya’ Butterfield and Endpoint’s Thomas ‘Thomas’ Utting are teaming up to participate in a 2v2 competition.
Red Bull and AOC Gaming this week revealed that the Red Bull Flick Invitational will take place on August 9th, with FaceIt on board as production partner.
Duos from some of the best CSGO teams in the world including Team Vitality, G2, BIG, ENCE, c0ntact Gaming and Giants Gaming will clash with duos who have proven themselves in the Red Bull Flick global qualifying circuit from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
There will be live narration from leading CSGO broadcast talent including British hosts James Bardolph, Daniel “ddk” Kapadia and Freya Spiers.
Red Bull athletes and CSGO stars Ricardo ‘fox’ Pacheco, Michaela ‘mimi’ Lintrup, as well as Owen ‘smooya’ Butterfield will also lead duos respectively.
Red Bull Flick originated in Turkey and has been further developed by Red Bull for the global stage. Pairs of players will face off on a set of new custom maps especially designed in house by Red Bull for the new game mode: Hold the Flag.
The crown jewel of Red Bull’s custom 2v2 tournament will see the 16 duos compete live on Twitch.tv/redbull and the Red Bull Gaming YouTube channel.
The teams will be battling to determine the best CSGO duo in this competition and who will take home €20,000.
The road to the Red Bull Flick Invitational has seen two teams qualify through the EU Closed National Qualifier and two teams from James Bardolph’s Red Bull Flick Open Qualifier, which took place earlier this year, with the additional 14 invited directly to compete.
The list of teams competing in the Red Bull Flick Invitational is:
- Team Vitality – Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
- G2 – Kenny “kennyS” Schrub and Audric “JaCkz” Jug
- G2 – Nemanja “nexa” Isaković and Nemanja ‘hunter’ Kovač
- BIG – Fatih “gob b” Dayik and Alexander “alexRr” Frisch
- ENCE – Jere “sergej” Salo and Jani “Aerial” Jussila
- C0ntact Gaming – Georgi ‘SHiPZ’ Grigorov and Rokas “EspiranTo” Milasauskas
- Honoris – Wojciech ‘prism’ Zięba and Filip “NEO” Kubski
- Honoris – Kamil ‘reiko’ Cegiełko and Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas
- Giants Gaming – Filipe ‘NOPEEJ’ Dias and Francisco ‘obj’ Ramos
- Ricardo “fox” Pacheco and Paulo ‘pr’ Silva
- Michaela “mimi” Lintrup and Emil “‘Remoy” Schlichter
- Owen “smooya” Butterfield and Thomas “Thomas” Utting
- Team Germany (EU Closed Qualifier) – Elias “s1n-” Stein and Tom “skyye” Hagedorn
- Team France (EU Closed Qualifier) – Pierre “Ex3rcice-‘ Bulinge and Thomas “Djoko_” Pavoni
- Team Russia (James Bardolph’s Red Bull Flick Open Qualifier) – Dmitriy “Dima” Bandurka & Vladislav “FinigaN” Usov
- Team Ukraine (James Bardolph’s Red Bull Flick Open Qualifier) – Misha “m1koo24-” Rudich and Valentin “HELLKISSS” Kulaga
More than a dozen countries across the globe have run their own national standalone championships earlier this year.
Countries that took part in Red Bull Flick included Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK.
Standalone Pan Nationals have taken place across CIS, LATAM, EUW and NA too.
The Red Bull Flick Pro Invitational begins at 10am BST on August 9th.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
