ESL One Cologne closed qualifier teams revealed

The European action is set to kick off in the morning hours of this Friday, May 25, with eight teams set to battle for the two ESL One Cologne slots in a double elimination BO3 bracket. Joining the two open qualifier teams, Valiance and WASD, will be the likes of North, Gambit and Virtus.pro.

OpTic received an invite for the North American portion of the qualifier

The European Qualifier will run over two days, with the opening matchups and the full schedule available below:

Friday, May 25th
11:00	Gambit	vs. Valiance
11:00	Space Soldiers	vs. HellRaisers
11:00	HEROIC	vs. Virtus.pro
11:00	WASD	vs. North
14:00	Upper Bracket Ro4
17:00	Lower Bracket Ro4a
Saturday, May 26th
11:00	Lower Bracker Ro4b
14:00	Upper Bracket Ro2 & Lower Bracket Ro2a
17:00	Lower Bracket Ro2b

Making the cut in North America were Renegades, Luminosity, NRG and OpTic, but Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele followed up the announcement with a tweet declaring that his team wouldn't take part in the qualifie, as the main event overlaps with the Americas Minor. It is also interesting to note that OpTic, who are now a fully Danish team, received an invite for the North American qualifier.

It is currently unclear what will happen with NRG's slot, but the rest of the matchups are known and the schedule is as follows:

Thursday, May 24th
21:00	eUnited	vs. Luminosity
21:00	Complexity	vs. TBD (NRG's slot)
00:00	OpTic	vs. Round 1 winner
00:00	Renegades	vs. Round 1 winner
03:00	Lower Bracket Ro4b
Friday, May 25th
21:00	Upper Bracket Ro2 & Lower Bracket Ro2a
00:00	Lower Bracket Ro2b
03:00	Grand Final