iBUYPOWER announce $5,000 CS:GO invitational - could this be a trial?

Not too long ago, almost the whole iBUYPOWER CS:GO squad were handed lifetime CS:GO bans for a match-fixing and betting ring scandal. Unshaken by their previous players' actions, this large-scale North American company announced that they were interested in continuing support for the local CS:GO community.

iBUYPOWER has just announced a partnership with ESEA which will see seven invited teams from North America and one from Canada battle it out for a $5,000 prize pool. In total this prize pot will be split only between the first and second placing competitors, seeing $4,000 go toward the winners.

This is by no means a massive tournament in its own right, but it could quite possibly be a testing ground for a new iBUYPOWER team pickup - especially seeing as they've publicly stated that they "look forward to building a new team to compete on the game's biggest stages".

Partnered with G.Skill, Tt eSPORTS, G1 Gaming, and Intel - The action will be showcased live on iBUYPOWER's Twitch.TV channel.