Following on from the XMG Captains Draft 2.0 competition that took place between 31^st October 2014 and the 21^st December 2014, the third Captains Draft qualification competition gets under way just over 13 months after the last later this week.

Last time around, it was Team Secret that took home the top prize of over $96,000 for winning the event, with Virtus.pro likely to be disappointed by coming second after the team dominated the group stage of the competition, winning 12 games and losing just two in that phase.

Team Tinker in third and Natus Vincere in fourth rounded out the top four last time around.

However for Captains Draft 3.0, only one of those teams, Virtus.pro will be returning to compete in the tournament as one of the six direct invites into the event. The other five teams that have accepted an invitation to participate in this event are; Evil Geniuses, Team Empire, Vega Squadron, Team Liquid and Alliance.

A further two teams will join from a Qualification event which is the event that is scheduled to kick off on the 19^th January. In this qualification event, eight teams will compete in a series of online games in a knockout competition that has both a winners and a losers bracket.

The winner of the winners bracket will play through a quarter final, semi final and then a final match up to claim their place in the Captain’s Draft 3.0 final. The second qualification spot will be made up from the winner of the losers bracket, where all losing teams from the quarter finals, semi finals and final of the winners bracket will drop down into this bracket and have a second chance to claim their spot in the final.

The winners of both brackets will then go on to play the six directly invited teams in the Captains Draft 3.0 finals event, which is also contested online. The eight teams contesting for these two places in the final event are Natus Vincere (who finished fourth at the last XMG Captains Draft event), Digital Chaos, compLexity Gaming, Team Spirit, STARK eSports, Steak Gaming, RoX and Power Rangers.

There are two things to note about this competition and the first is that matches are played online and there is no official schedule for games. As such, games tend to be organised when teams are free, which is why the event takes a while to play through. As such, it is advisable to check back with your eSports betting company to see if any matches are scheduled to bet on.

Secondly, prize money in this competition is increased from the base $100,000 by contributions from viewers, which can see the amount of money awarded to the top teams increased by a considerable amount.

Check out what bets are available from the Captains Draft Qualifiers later this week at Bet365 Sports now.

DreamHack Leipzig Tops The Betting for CS:GO and SCII Punters This Week

There is a growing trend in the eSports industry for major offline events to take place around the world for a number of different eSports in the same place at the same time. The WCA 2015 back in December was a great example of this and in January 2016, the DreamHack Leipzig event in Germany will certainly be the focus for StarCraft II and Counter Strike: Global Offensive players this week.

Both these popular eSports will be showcased at this big offline event in Germany and each event will feature some of the best teams and players in the world at the event, competing for big money prizes. Let’s take a look at each individual tournament in a little more detail

• DreamHack Leipzig StarCraft 2 Tournament

There is a prize pool guaranteed at $50,000 for each of the 64 players that have earned their place at the StarCraft 2 DreamHack Leipzig event to compete for over the three days of action, kicking off on Friday 22^nd January, through until Sunday 24^th January.

The first stage of the competition sees the 64 players drawn into 16 groups of 4 players each, with each player facing the others in their group in a Best of Three format, and the top two players then progress into the next phase of the competition.

In the second phase of the competition, the 32 qualifiers from the first phase will join 32 seeded players in the second group stage, which will once again be 16 groups of 4, playing against each other in Best of Three matches with the top two heading into the playoffs.

Once the 32 playoff places have been decided, it is then a straight knockout competition over a series of Best of Five games, with the winners progressing into the Round of 16, then onto the quarter finals, semi finals and the final. The Grand Final (taking place on Sunday) is a Best of Seven event to decide the winner.

• DreamHack Leipzig Counter Strike: Global Offensive Tournament

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, there were qualifiers for the DreamHack Leipzig CS:GO event, for two teams to join the six seeded teams (Virtus.pro, Luminosity Gaming, Natus Vincere, ?, G2 Esports and mousesports) in the event.

Well the results of those qualifiers saw Team Dignitas and SK Gaming make it through to the offline event in Leipzig and they will join the six seeded sides in the event that kicks off on the 22^nd January.

There is a prize pool of $100,000 up for grabs and the competition will be split into two distinct stages.

The first stage will see the eight finalists drawn into two groups, A and B where they will face off against the other teams in their group for a place in the playoffs. After playing each of the teams in their group, the teams are ranked and the top two teams from each group will make it through to the playoffs.

There’s no second chance for losers here as the teams finishing 3^rd and 4^th in the group are eliminated.

The second phase is a relatively short one and begins with the semi finals between the top two teams in the group. Once again, there’s no second chance here as it is a straight knockout event with the two winning semi finalists progressing on to contest the final on Sunday.

For eSports betting enthusiasts, the group stages will be available to bet on from Friday, the semi finals on Saturday and the final itself on Sunday.