Astralis and Movistar Riders one step away from missing the IEM Rio Major

The situation is getting out of hand for Astralis and Movistar Riders, two of the world’s strongest CS:GO teams. Both of them have had multiple chances to qualify for the regionals of IEM Rio Major 2022 and they failed each time.

With only one open qualifier left, these CS:GO giants are probably near breaking point and nobody understands how this is possible.

The mystery

CS:GO is a game of skill and there’s very little luck involved in it. Some rounds might be lost due to bad luck, but that doesn’t happen very often and each map is a best-of-16 series. So when a team like Astralis gets beaten with a score of 16-8 by an opponent that’s barely in the top 100, there’s absolutely no excuse.

In the open qualifiers of IEM Rio Major, teams are required to win four consecutive matches to advance to the regional qualifiers. Three of those matches are best-of-one. One of them is a best-of-three. So far, Astralis got eliminated in the third, first, and second round respectively. And each time, they got beaten by an outsider.

In the case of Movistar Riders, there have been two attempts so far to qualify for the regionals. During the first one, the Spanish team got defeated by LDLC in the first round. The second time, it was B8 that ended their dream. And just like in the case of Astralis, the battle was not close at all. The final score was 16–9.

What’s the cause?

If Astralis and Movistar riders would be losing match after match against world-class teams, it would be perfectly normal for them to start losing matches against lesser teams as well. But given the recent success of both teams, the results of these open qualifiers make no sense at all.

It may have been caused by fatigue, the lack of preparation against a particular opponent whose playstyle is very unique, or just raw skill on the side of the underdog.

Another possibility here is cheating, but the odds are extremely low. Nevertheless, the replays of the matches should be carefully analyzed from each player’s perspective just to make sure that we’re not dealing with an unpleasant scenario again.

CS:GO has already had its reputation tarnished by such incidents and tournament organizers should make sure that they don’t happen again. Until proven contrary, both Astralis and Movistar Riders have failed quite badly to live up to their reputations.

Header: Astralis