BLAST announce Paris Major qualifiers

BLAST have announced the format and dates of the qualifying process for the upcoming Regional Major Ranking tournaments ahead of the BLAST.tv Paris Major.

The qualifying process starts with open and closed qualifiers in mid-to-late February, and the RMR tournaments themselves will take place on April 3-12.

Teams who reached the Legends Stage of the IEM Rio Major will be directly invited to their respective RMRs — 14 out of 32 teams in Europe and 2 out of 16 teams in the Americas. The remainder will come from the closed qualifiers, which have been introduced as part of changes to the qualifying process ahead of this Major cycle.

This cycle will be the first to use the recently launched Valve Regional Standings, a special ranking which will determine half of the invites to the closed qualifiers (16 in Europe, 8 in South America, 8 in North America, and 4 in each of Asia, Oceania, China, and the Middle East). The other half will come from open qualifiers.

The current Valve Regional Standings as of January 17 can be found below, but the closed qualifier invites will be sent based on the standings on February 12:

Europe
Americas
Asia

BLAST has released a video explaining the entire process, from open qualifiers to the Major itself:

Below you can find all the basic information for each region, how many Major spots it has, when the qualifiers take place, and who the invited teams will be:

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Europe

A total of 17 teams will qualify from the European RMRs for the Paris Major, the top seven of which will start the Major from the Legends Stage. Europe is the only region where the RMRs will be split into two tournaments, each boasting 16 teams.

- Open qualifier: February 13-14
- Closed qualifier A: February 15-19
- Closed qualifier B: February 15-19

- RMR: April 3-12 (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Teams directly invited to RMRs (distribution is based on the last Major Ranking, as per Valve's rulebook):

+ 18 teams from closed qualifiers

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Americas

In the 16-team Americas RMR, five teams will qualify for the Paris Major, one of which will start the Major from the Legends Stage.

- South America open qualifier: February 21-22
- South America closed qualifier: February 23-26

- North America open qualifier: February 21-22
- North America closed qualifier: February 23-26

- RMR: April 3-12 (Monterrey, Mexico)

Teams directly invited to RMR:

+ 7 teams from South America closed qualifier
+ 7 teams from North America closed qualifier

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Asia

Asia by default has two spots at the Paris Major, as neither of their representatives made it past the Challengers Stage last time around at the IEM Rio Major.

- Asia open qualifier: February 15-16
- Asia closed qualifier: February 17-19

- Oceania open qualifier: February 15-16
- Oceania closed qualifier: February 17-19

- China open qualifier: February 15-16
- China closed qualifier: February 17-19

- Middle East open qualifier: February 22-23
- Middle East closed qualifier: February 24-26

- RMR: April 3-12 (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)

Each closed qualifier holds two spots at the Asia RMR, which has been expanded from four teams to eight for the upcoming cycle.