IEM Rio Major American RMR preview

The American regional qualifier for IEM Rio Major is about to begin. A total of 16 teams will compete for six tickets to the tournament.

Some of the participants look so strong that they’re unlikely to miss the event. But many more are roughly equal in terms of skill and the difference will be made by training. The matches will take place offline, in Stockholm, between September 5-9.

IEM Rio Major American RMR details

The American RMR for IEM Rio Major will follow the same rules as the other RMRs. The only difference is the number of teams that will qualify. The tournament will use the Swiss System. In each round, teams with identical results will compete against each other.

In the end, the top five qualified competitors will be the ones with a record of 3 W – 0 L or 3 W – 1 L. Only one team with three wins and two losses will go to the Major, so there will be a lot of tiebreakers.

Another important difference between the American qualifier and the European ones is related to the Major status received by the qualified teams. In the American RMR, only one team will be given the Legend status, which means that the top two participants will need to face each other in a tiebreaker to determine who won.

Elimination and advancement matches will be best-of-three. The remaining matches will be best-of-one. However, we don’t know if that also applies to the tiebreakers. Given the small number of competitive days, it most likely will.

Participants

So far, 14 of the 16 participants have been determined. Here they are:

• FURIA Esports
• Imperial Esports
• Team Liquid
• Complexity Gaming
• Ex-Gaimin
• paiN Gaming
• 00 Nation
• MIBR
• Evil Geniuses
• ATK
• 9z Team
• O Plano
• Arctic eSports
• Isurus

The two remaining teams will be selected based on the results of the third NA open qualifier.

The big favorites on this list are these:

• FURIA Esports
• Team Liquid
• 00 Nation
• Complexity Gaming
• Imperial Esports
• Evil Geniuses

In EG’s case, the situation is uncertain, but an organization of this caliber should be able to qualify. After all, this roster used to play alongside legends like Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip just a few months ago.

One team that will be interesting to watch is 00 Nation. This is the team of Marcelo “coldzera” David and Epitacio “TACO” de Melo. Both of them are exceptional CS:GO players who won numerous trophies. In the last two years they struggled a bit, but now they seem ready to win again.

Header: ESL