Most of the spots at the IEM Rio Major have now been decided, as over the course of day five the tally increased to 19 names out of 24. IHC were the first to join the list of teams qualified for Rio after winning the Asia RMR over Grayhound, and Europe followed a few hours later with Group B’s 2-1 matches.
Heroic clinched their spot with an all-around comfortable win against BIG, where Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz‘s efforts were not enough to keep the Danes at bay. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut led Vitality to a 2-1 victory over MOUZ and helped his teammate Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen retain his flawless record of having attended all Majors to date.
The ever-passionate Bad News Eagles will hope to repeat their impressive Antwerp performance in Rio de Janeiro later this month
OG were next to lock in their place in Brazil after beating back Outsiders — a milestone for the organization that entered the scene just before the pandemic began and, after a two-year wait, barely missed out on a spot at the previous two Majors in Stockholm and Antwerp.
Group A’s all-or-nothing matches in the 2-2 pool saw fnatic beat 1WIN to ensure the black-and-orange organization’s return to the Majors for the first time in 2019, GamerLegion complete their dramatic run through the RMR after taking down B8, and Bad News Eagles perform one of their signature comebacks against forZe to make it to their second consecutive Major.
In the Americas, it was all about elimination on Saturday. Only three teams now remain in contention for the last spot on offer in the region — Imperial came back from 8-15 on the opening map against Nouns to go 3-2 and were joined by paiN and Complexity in a sixth-place decider bracket set to play out on Sunday, while ATK and Isurus bowed out of the competition.
Who has qualified so far?
To be determined*
Liquid
Evil Geniuses
Spirit Cloud9
Heroic
Vitality OG
* Liquid vs. Evil Geniuses will decide one Legends spot
Heroic, Vitality, and OG will play in a third-place decider bracket for a Legends spot
Standout results of day 5
Europe A
Bad News Eagles 2-1
B8
Europe B
BIG
Falcons 2-1
Americas
Isurus 2-1
MIBR
Performance of the day
Keeping up with his terrifying form from the last few months, ZywOo was a menace in Vitality‘s Major-qualifying victory against MOUZ. With a 1.76 and 1.57 rating on Mirage and Vertigo, it was in large part thanks to the French superstar that Vitality came back from a loss on the opening Inferno to secure a spot in Rio.
Honorable mentions:
Johnny “JT” Theodosiou vs. Isurus
25-6 in a 10-5 CT half on Inferno
Rigon “rigoN” Gashi vs. forZe
28-11, 2.27 rating in a 16-4 win on Mirage
Caner “Soulfly” Kesici vs. Illuminar
32-18, 1.88 rating in a 16-10 win on Ancient
Play of the day
The play of the day also goes the way of ZywOo and his ace and 1v3 clutch against MOUZ, where the Frenchman’s skill and awareness was on full display as he picked his opponents off one by one with the AWP.
HLTV live coverage
Interviews
Read more
chelo: “Playing with FalleN has given me the best moments of my life”
Read more
Spinx: “On CT-side Mirage the team wanted me to be kind of an IGL”
Read more
coldzera: “I don’t go to the gym, I don’t enjoy my life, I only play CS”
Comments
Flatron “juanflatroo” Halimi: “If you make it one time, you can call it lucky, but if you make it the second time and you make it convincing enough, that’s not lucky anymore”
Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand: “I don’t think we went into the qualification actually expecting us to qualify for the Major”
Nemanja “nexa” Isaković: “This was the goal when I first joined OG, to get into the Major”
Who’s in the running for the last five spots?
There are a total of 11 teams still in play for the last five spots. The final day of the Major qualifiers will kick off with the Asia RMR decider in Melbourne, where Grayhound will hope to keep their Major streak alive as they face JiJieHao International.
The 2-2 matches in the European B group will follow along with the sixth-place decider in the Americas RMR, in which Imperial will first face paiN at 13:00 before the winner locks horns with Complexity later in the day for a spot in Rio.
Here are the key matches which will decide the last five IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage spots:
IEM Rio Major qualifying matches
04:00JiJieHao International vs.
Grayhound
11:00
14:30
18:00
20:00
