First two groups for MLG Columbus Major have been drawn

The group stage for this month's massive Counter-Strike tournament, the MLG Columbus Major, is slowly being set. Last night, Major League Gaming revealed the draw for the first two groups out of a total of four.

The reveal happened on Instagram, of all places. Group A will consist of Luminosity Gaming, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Mousesports and FlipSid3, while Group B includes Fnatic, FaZe, Splyce and Team Liquid. Two teams from each group will advance to the playoff bracket, and while Luminosity and Fnatic are obvious picks for first place in each of their groups (they recently faced each other in the finals of IEM Katowice), the second place seems a lot more open.

MLG hasn't said how exactly they've decided the groups, or when the remaining two will be revealed. But apparently teams have already been informed; Counter Logic Gaming player Cutler tweeted that his team had been placed in group with Astralis, EnVyUs and Gambit Esports. That tweet has since been deleted. If what Cutler said is true, the final group will consist of Na'Vi, Virtus.Pro, G2 Esports and Cloud9.

The MLG Columbus Major is a Valve-sponsored Major tournament. That means Valve puts up the prize money and dictates the overall format. Majors traditionally use a group stage format with four groups of four teams who play each other in a GSL-style bracket of best-of-1 games. Maps are selected randomly.

The Major group format has come increasingly under fire recently, as many teams only get to play a total of two maps before their tournament run is over, and the random map picks can lead to surprise upsets and complete stomps. The format recently used at IEM Katowice, which had two groups of six teams playing a round-robin format, is perceived to be the better option.

The MLG Columbus Major is the first Valve-sponsored Major held in the US, and also the first since Valve expanded the prize pool from $250,000 to $1 million.