Favorites of European RMRs for IEM Rio Major

The 32 participants for the European RMRs of IEM Rio Major 2022 have been revealed. Half of them will compete in European RMR A and the other half in European RMR B.

In both cases, six teams got direct invitations based on their previous results, while the other 10 had to compete in the open qualifiers. There were four such qualifiers in total and most of the strong teams advanced to the regional qualifiers or the RMRs.

European RMR A

Here are the participants featured by the first European RMR:

• FaZe Clan
• Team Spirit
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• G2 Esports
• Cloud9
• Bad News Eagles
• Sprout
• Aurora Gaming
• Fnatic
• forZe
• Eternal Fire
• B8
• ECSTATIC
• Astralis
• 1WIN
• GamerLegion

Eight of these 16 teams will go to IEM Rio Major. Which ones, we will find out on October 9 because the competition takes place between October 4-9. One interesting fact here is that the tournament will be held offline, in Malta. We often see big events having online qualifiers. IEM Rio Major requires its teams to succeed at a LAN event.

The big favorites of this qualifier are FaZe Clan, NiP, Cloud9, G2, and Astralis. Apart from these five teams, which are almost guaranteed to qualify if they play their usual Counter-Strike, the three remaining spots will be heavily contested.

There are a lot of good teams of similar strength and the difference will be made by tournament form.

European RMR B

Here are the participants featured by the second European RMR:

• Natus Vincere
• ENCE
• Heroic
• Team Vitality
• BIG
• Outsiders
• Team Falcons
• MOUZ
• OG
• K23
• Monte
• Sangal Esports
• FANTASY
• SAW
• HEET
• BenchedHeroes

The favorites in this tournament are Natus Vincere, Heroic, Team Vitality, Outsiders, OG, BIG, Falcons, and MOUZ. Unlike the other European RMR, this one has a lot of teams that look too strong to lose their spot at the Major.

It will take either poor tournament form, multiple encounters with very tough opponents, or spectacular performances from the underdogs to change the list of teams that will go to the IEM Rio Major.

In particular, OG, Falcons, and MOUZ deserve a lot more respect than they receive. Recently, OG defeated both FaZe Clan and Astralis at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals.

Falcons have a strong roster full of French superstars who left other big teams, such as Vitality (Kevin “misutaaa” Rabier) and MOUZ (Nathan “NBK-“ Schmitt).

MOUZ are ranked 11th in the world right now and should not be neglected. As recent events have shown (such as IEM Cologne, where they finished fifth-sixth), MOUZ are capable of great performances.

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