ESL forces teams to choose Rio or Atlanta qualifier due to "fairness to all participants" *

ESL mandated that the two qualifiers must have mutually exclusive teams.

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Update August 21, 10:10 : ESL provides explanation

In a comment on the decision on X, SVP Game Ecosystems at ESL FACEIT Group Ulrich Schulze said the following:

"Ensuring that teams do not play in qualifiers for events that overlap, i.e. they cannot attend both, is not about reducing opportunities nor is it about extra work for ESL admins. It is about fairness to all participating teams in the qualifiers.

"If a team played in both qualifiers, won one of them and won or progressed far in the other qualifier, it would be unfair to any team they beat along the way in the qualifier of the event they ultimately did not attend. Simply inviting the runner-up of that qualifier would not solve for this.

"I understand how this may be a source of frustration for teams affected, but they would very likely be equally frustrated if they were on the other side of the situation I described above."

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The team lists for the North America IEM Rio and ESL Challenger Atlanta closed qualifiers have been finalized following the conclusion of the open qualifiers.

FLUFFY AIMERS and LAG join invited sides Liquid and Legacy OCE in the battle for a spot in Rio, while NRG and Party Astronauts will face Nouns and Wildcard for a chance to play on home turf in Georgia, USA.

ESL Challenger Atlanta is scheduled to run from October 4-6 and IEM Rio from October 7-13, leaving insufficient overlap for teams playing in the first event to arrive in time for the latter.

However, the NA closed qualifiers for the tournaments do not overlap and are scheduled for August 29-30 and August 31 - September 1, respectively.

Rather than allow teams to attempt to qualify for both tournaments and, in case one team qualifies for both, force them to pick between them, ESL mandated that teams had to pick the qualifier they wanted to compete in, including teams who were invited and those who advanced through the open qualifiers.

NRG and Party Astronauts made it through the open brackets for both events but were forced to pick which closed stage they would compete in, with a third-place decider match played in the second Rio open qualifier to determine an extra replacement team ahead of Party Astronauts' decision.

ESL's directive has been poorly received and openly criticized by teams and players in North America as it further reduces the already limited opportunities for upcoming teams to compete in international tournaments, particularly with both events taking place in the Americas.

The team lists for the qualifiers are: