Flashpoint released the group draws for its Global LAN qualifiers yesterday, but declined to provide an official press release. Instead, the league confirmed a report published by HLTV.
The North American league’s closed qualifiers, named the Global LAN Qualifiers, will feature two groups of four teams that won their spots in the open qualifiers earlier this month. In total, two out of the eight teams will join Flashpoint’s ten franchised partners in the opening season of the league:
Group A
Group B
Isurus Gaming had originally won the South American open qualifiers but decided to withdraw when Flashpoint revealed that the event would take place at the same time as the ESL One Rio Major’s South American closed qualifiers. DETONA Gaming was chosen to take their place as the third-place finisher in the South American open qualifier.
The six teams will compete for two slots in Flashpoint as the nascent tournament organizer tries to find its feet. Flashpoint is owned by a number of top esports organizations instead of an outside tournament organizer, an approach ESL took a few weeks later with the ESL Pro League.
ESL currently has all of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s top ten teams under contract for the next three years. Starting with Season 11, ESL Pro League will be owned in part by 13 teams including Astralis, Team Liquid, and Fnatic.
So far, only six of Flashpoint’s reported 10 franchised members have revealed their association with the league. These teams include the following:
The qualifiers’ playoffs will take place in a double-elimination, best-of-three format. Unfortunately, there has been no official release from Flashpoint regarding the qualifier groups or its format. Flashpoint’s website has not been updated since its launch on February 5.
The closest thing to an official announcement came on Flashpoint’s Twitter account, which retweeted HLTV’s announcement.
A partnership between Flashpoint and HLTV makes sense, especially given the fact that ESL and the 13 franchised teams plan to use their own ranking system in lieu of HLTV’s standard to compute group draws and seedings for the ESL Pro Tour.
The Flashpoint closed qualifiers will begin on March 3 and will run through March 5. The final two teams standing will join the franchised teams for the league’s inaugural season. According to reports, the Global LAN qualifiers will take place at the existing FACEIT Studios in Los Angeles, California. There is a strong chance the venue will also host Flashpoint’s inaugural season.
Though the season is approaching quickly, fans have little information regarding the North American league. An exact schedule remains elusive, as does an official list of teams and prize pool distribution.
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