The group stage of the third edition of the Nine to Five series will kick off on August 17 and will be played in a Swiss format, with the top-eight sides earning a place in the playoffs, where MIBR, HEROIC, Spirit, and North are already waiting as directly invited teams. Eyes will be on FORZE as the highest-ranked team of the group stage, followed by two other CIS sides in Winstrike and the recently rebranded K23 squad, formerly known as Syman. xsepower is a hot commodity in the Fantasy game To play the Fantasy game for the Swiss group stage, join the official league to play for prizes, or you can create your own league, drafted live or on a budget, to play against your friends or members of various communities. The prizes of the official HLTV x Nine to Five league are: 1. Bowie Knife | Scorched (Field Tested) 2. AK-47 | Fuel Injector (Field Tested) 3. M4A1-S | Master Piece (Field Tested)
The winners will be contacted via the email provided in their HLTV profile, and are required to respond to the email within a month to be eligible to receive their prizes.  FORZE #28  Dmitriy 'facecrack' Alekseyev Almaz 'almazer' Asadullin Evgenii 'FL1T' Lebedev Bogdan 'xsepower' Chernikov Andrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov  Syman   Winstrike #31  Vladyslav 'bondik' Nechyporchuk Aleksei 'NickelBack' Trofimov Aidyn 'KrizzeN' Turlybekov Viktor 'Lack1' Boldyrev Aleksei 'El1an' Gusev   HEROIC #19   Casper 'cadiaN' Møller Johannes 'b0RUP' Borup Nikolaj 'niko' Kristensen Martin 'stavn' Lund René 'TeSeS' Madsen  MIBR #16  Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo Vito 'kNgV-' Giuseppe Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo Alencar 'trk' Rossato  Spirit #20  Leonid 'chopper' Vishnyakov Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev Artem 'iDISBALANCE' Egorov Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev   K23 #33   Rustem 'mou' Telepov Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov Nicolas 'Keoz' Dgus David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan Aidos 'kade0' Khairzhan   North #24   René 'cajunb' Borg Mathias 'MSL' Lauridsen Philip 'aizy' Aistrup Nicklas 'gade' Gade |