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Arbalet Cup Europe has reached its starting point, when kicking off Friday.

It is morning in Stockholm and dusk is starting to disappear when the first teams arrived at Inferno Online in Stockholm. The well-known LAN center will be the host of this first ever Arbalet Cup Europe. The event that started out as a small Russian based event, but has grown rapidly and now gather sixteen top teams.

The first edition of Arbalet Cup Europe will however be an event marked by many teams being replaced and several teams using stand-ins. There will be a total of four stand-ins, Timm "ArcadioN" Henriksen for mTw, Preben "prb" Gammelsæter for Oslo Lions, Kai "blizker" Lüneberg for Alternate and Alexey "LeX" Kolesnikov for tp.uSports. Whether it will have a major impact on the quality of the tournament is doubtful, as the teams on site all have a certain caliber, that won't make a stand-in drag them down the drain.


Arbalet Cup Europe taking shape

Just eight of the sixteen teams will be in the pit on this first day of the tournament. The remaining eight teams will enter the tournament on Saturday. Some of the players will however be playing today already, as some are featured in the All-Star tournament, scheduled to take place after Groups A and B finalized.

It will be an interesting battle between lots of great players from various countries, promising for great action. All-Star matches are truly an element that tournaments have lacked, it gives the tournament the extra touch of crisp and excitement.

I encourage you to stay locked to HLTV.org during the entire weekend, as we will be bringing you all of the action from Arbalet Cup Europe.