IEM Rio Major EU open qualifier #2 results

The second open qualifier for IEM Rio Major is over and four teams have advanced to the two regional RMR qualifiers that will take place in the European region. So far, nine CS:GO teams advanced to the regionals and 11 more will advance after the third and fourth open qualifiers.

The results of the second open qualifier are quite surprising. There were a lot of strong teams in the race and the ones that ended up winning are not exactly the ones that were predicted to qualify.

The four winners

The four winners of the second open qualifier in Europe are Fnatic, Monte, K23, and forZe. In the case of Fnatic and forZe, their results make perfect sense and were expected. Teams of their caliber should definitely play in the regional qualifiers. But Monte and K23 are not as well-known. Especially Monte.

K23 are ranked 41st globally and have been a top 50 team for two months. The team was created a short while ago and some of its players, such as Timur “clax” Sabirov, are known a little bit in the CIS region. But so far, this participation in the regional qualifiers for IEM Rio Major is the best result of his career.

Monte’s global rank is 79th, which makes their achievement quite spectacular. They had to win four consecutive matches against much better teams to qualify and somehow, they managed to make it happen. The last of these matches was against Endpoint, the team of some high-level players such as Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye. And they won with a score of 2–0.

Fnatic’s race was easy until the quarterfinals, where they encountered HAVU Gaming. The match was brutal and anyone could have won. On both maps, Fnatic managed to win by a tiny margin: 16-14 on Mirage and 28-26 on Nuke. Despite being ranked just 85th, HAVU created huge problems for Fnatic and nearly eliminated them.

ForZe are a top 20 CIS team with a lot of prodigies. It remains to be seen if they’ll keep the roster intact or if they’ll start selling their best players to bigger orgs. The latter option seems more likely.

In the second open qualifier for IEM Rio Major, forZe did not encounter a single strong team. So it’s no wonder that they managed to qualify with ease.

The big upset

One team that should have absolutely been among the four qualified ones is Astralis. Unfortunately for the Danes, they got eliminated in the first round by Neon Rangers.

Header: ESL