ESL One Cologne open qualifiers reach end

In Europe, the biggest surprise was the qualification of Estonian side WASD, who defeated aAa in the last-four stage after beating the likes of Red Reserve, Sprout and AVANGAR in the previous stages.

Rainer "⁠Dodz⁠" Trossek's team finished top two along with Valiance, who swept through the best-of-one rounds before defeating ALTERNATE aTTaX on two maps with a strong individual display from Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač.

Valiance through to the closed qualifier

The North American qualifier was not nearly as straightforward. In the last-four stage, eUnited were handed a forfeit victory over Mythic after Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag's side failed to comply with the league's broadcast rules, which ESL Tournament Director Jonas "⁠bsl⁠" Alsaker Vikan stressed that "have been there for years".

From the bottom half of the bracket came Complexity, who did not have to break a sweat to finish in the top two, never letting any of their opponents hit double digits in any of their matches.

Valiance and WASD will be joined by six invited teams in the closed qualifier, with two spots at ESL One Cologne on the line. Complexity and eUnited will compete with four invitees in the North American qualifier, from which the winner will advance to the $300,000 German event.

The team list for the two qualifiers currently looks as follows:

European qualifier
Valiance	WASD
Invite #1	Invite #2
Invite #3	Invite #4
Invite #5	Invite #6
North American qualifier
Complexity	eUnited
Invite #1	Invite #2
Invite #3	Invite #4