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Win.gg Counter-Strike ESL reveals 2020 Rio Minor closed qualifier invited teams

ESL reveals 2020 Rio Minor closed qualifier invited teams

M Alzamora
M Alzamora Published 31/01/2020

ESL released the list invitees for the closed qualifiers for the ESL One Rio Minor today. These invited teams will face those that qualify through the open qualifiers for a spot in the Valve-sponsored tournament Minors.

The closed qualifiers are the first list of invites that are based on ESL’s controversial ranking system that operates independently from HLTV’s World Rankings. For ESL’s Pro Tour, the tournament organizer has created its own list, separate from the current HLTV standard.

The tournament organizer has invited teams from all major regions, but not all regions are equal in the number of teams invited. North America, Europe, and the CIS regions each feature eight invited teams. South America, Oceania, East Asia, China, SEA, and the ME regions have four invited teams each.

Cloud9, Fnatic headline ESL One Rio Minor Closed Qualifier list

The lists include some notable names like Cloud9 and Fnatic, both of which failed to make last year’s StarLadder Berlin Major.

The closed qualifiers for North America, Europe, and the CIS region will fill their final slots with eight teams from the open qualifiers. The dates for the three largest open qualifiers are as follows:

More information on both the open and closed qualifier process can be found on ESL’s official blog on the topic.

Here’s the list of the teams invited by ESL to the closed qualifier portion of the tournament:

Europe

North America

CIS

South America

Oceania

East Asia

China

SEA

Middle East

The ESL One Rio Major will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from May 11 to May 24 and is the first Major tournament to be hosted in the region.

M Alzamora M Alzamora
About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

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