The groups for the next major, ESL One Cologne 2016, were drawn live on the official stream shortly after the last match between G2 and Cloud9 was over.
Over the last four days sixteen teams fought in the newly-introduced Swiss system for eight spots at the next $1,000,000 major, ESL One Cologne.
Sixteeen major participants have been distributed into four seeding pools according to their placing at the previous major and at the offline qualifier, as usual.
G2 put into the group of death
Due to the Swiss system, this time a specific tie-breaking system had to be in use in order to determine which four teams receive the higher spot, the first of which being the win-loss ratio, and the second being the Buchholz score system (the sum of wins of the team's opponent).
That resulted into the following four seeding pools:
| First | Second | Third | Fourth |
 Luminosity |  CLG |  MOUZ |  Dignitas |
 Natus Vincere |  Ninjas in Pyjamas |  FaZe |  FlipSid3 |
| Liquid |  Virtus.pro |  Gambit |  Envy |
| Astralis | fnatic |  OpTic | G2 |
After Cloud9 and G2 finished the last match of the qualifier, ESL drew the Cologne groups, each featuring one team from each seeding pool.
The ESL One Cologne groups are following:
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4 |
| Liquid | Luminosity | Astralis | Natus Vincere |
| Virtus.pro | fnatic | CLG | Ninjas in Pyjamas |
| MOUZ | FaZe | Gambit | OpTic |
| Envy | G2 | Dignitas | FlipSid3 |
* ESL will announce the group order later on
G2 #5 Richard 'shox' PapillonCédric 'RpK' GuipouyEdouard 'SmithZz' Dubourdeaux
Adil 'ScreaM' BenrlitomAlexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro 
Ninjas in Pyjamas #3 Patrik 'f0rest' LindbergChristopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundRichard 'Xizt' LandströmAdam 'friberg' FribergJacob 'pyth' Mourujärvi 
Astralis #7 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenAndreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethPeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenNicolai 'device' ReedtzMarkus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye 
FaZe #18 
Ricardo 'fox' PachecoFabien 'kioShiMa' FieyPhilip 'aizy' Aistrup
Håvard 'rain' NygaardJoakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad 
Gambit #31 
Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevDmitry 'hooch' BogdanovMihail 'Dosia' StolyarovRustem 'mou' TelepovIvan 'spaze' Obrezhan 
MOUZ #13 
Chris 'chrisJ' de Jong
Nikola 'NiKo' KovačJohannes 'nex' MagetTimo 'Spiidi' RichterDenis 'denis' Howell 
Natus Vincere #2 Ioann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' Teslenko
Ladislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsDenis 'seized' KostinEgor 'flamie' Vasilyev 
OpTic #15 William 'RUSH' Wierzba
Oscar 'mixwell' CañellasPeter 'stanislaw' JarguzKeith 'NAF' MarkovicDamian 'daps' Steele 
Envy #8 Kenny 'kennyS' SchrubNathan 'NBK-' SchmittDan 'apEX' MadesclaireVincent 'Happy' SchopenhauerTimothée 'DEVIL' Démolon 
Cloud9 #16 Jordan 'n0thing' GilbertTyler 'Skadoodle' LathamMike 'shroud' GrzesiekAlec 'Slemmy' WhiteJake 'Stewie2K' Yip 
FlipSid3 #27 Yegor 'markeloff' MarkelovAndrey 'B1ad3' GorodenskiyOleksandr 'Shara' HordieyevGeorgi 'WorldEdit' YaskinJan 'wayLander' Rahkonen 
Dignitas #14 Ruben 'RUBINO' VillarroelRené 'cajunb' BorgJesper 'TENZKI' PlougmannMathias 'MSL' LauridsenKristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke 
Luminosity #1 Lincoln 'fnx' LauGabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFernando 'fer' AlvarengaMarcelo 'coldzera' DavidEpitacio 'TACO' de Melo 
Liquid #10 Spencer 'Hiko' MartinNick 'nitr0' CannellaOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiKenneth 'koosta' Suen 
fnatic #4 Olof 'olofmeister' KajbjerDennis 'dennis' EdmanRobin 'flusha' RönnquistJesper 'JW' WecksellFreddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson 
Virtus.pro #6 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasFilip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiJanusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiPaweł 'byali' Bieliński 
CLG #20 Faruk 'pita' PitaStephen 'reltuC' CutlerJosh 'jdm64' MarzanoJames 'hazed' CobbTarik 'tarik' Celik (责任编辑：spectrum 2 case)
