Is 12 hours of CS in Astana not enough to quench your thirst? Well don’t worry - there’ll be another 12 hours every day thanks to IEM Atlanta.

ESL’s interestingly attended tournament is set to kick off today, and although the field in Astana might be slightly more impressive, there are some teams we’re really excited to see.

Chief of all, of course, is BC.Game. It’s their first event with Senzu, and we have absolutely no clue what to expect. They have a tough opener against Vitality, but could they pull off an upset? Probably not. Really, it just depends on what they do in the loser’s bracket, and it’s got to click for them at some point, right?

We’ll also have our eyes on FaZe, after an impressive showing at BLAST Rivals Fort Worth. There are some concerns given the large percentage of rounds they won via clutch, but if Twistzz and enkay J have cooked up some more bullsh-t, another playoffs run isn’t impossible.

Speaking of teams going on unlikely playoff runs, GamerLegion will also be in attendance after similarly impressing in Fort Worth. They have a pretty nice opener in SINNERS, but in a tough side of the bracket that contains NAVI, Liquid, M80, Legacy, and Astralis, making playoffs here would be very impressive.

And yes, we did include Liquid, M80, and Legacy in that group.

And yes, we do think Liquid was the most egregious inclusion.

Astralis themselves will make for interesting viewing. They’re so good at points, but their ability to throw away games is a real concern. They should never have lost to GamerLegion in the manner they did, but if they can actually learn from it, a semi-finals berth could be very achievable.

Most of all, though, we’ll be on the lookout for Passion UA. Not because we like them, but because we find them really f-cking funny.

There’s at least some interest in them this time, given that they’ll be playing with sdy, but let’s face it - this is nothing more than a hate watch.

And we love a hate watch.