South American Open Qualifiers for IEM Road to Rio 2022 Moved to FACEIT Platform

Tournament operator ESL has announced changes to the IEM Road to Rio 2022 open qualifiers for teams from South America. As a result, qualifier matches will be moved to the FACEIT platform. These changes are caused by a number of technical issues that the teams on the ESEA platform faced during the first open qualifier.

Due to the many factors affecting the South American Qualifier, as also stated in the ESEA update, we are looking to move the South American region from ESEA to the FACEIT platform. This applies to Open Qualifier #2 starting on Saturday, August 20th, and Open Qualifier #3 starting on Thursday, August 25th.

Recall that the FACEIT venue recently held the South American qualifiers for PGL Major Antwerp 2022 and, thus, was able to satisfy the high interest from the teams of the region, which also manifests itself in the qualifiers for IEM Road to Rio. All teams and players who have registered for the ESEA Open Qualifiers have been notified of this change and will not be transferred to FACEIT automatically. All teams participating in the South American leg of the qualifier will need to re-register through the FACEIT platform.

The results of the first open qualifiers can be found in our materials:

• Europe
  
• South and North America

However, ESL went to meet the players from Pakistan, who encountered problems in the first qualifier. As a result, the organizers decided to move the teams from this region to the Middle East. Recall that following the results of the first qualifying tournament, the teams expressed dissatisfaction with the organizers, who forced them to play in the Asian part, thereby forcing them to fight with high ping.

We are happy to follow the continuation of the qualification for IEM Road to Rio 2022 and will try to publish an update soon with more details about the dates and venues of the competitions in Europe, America and Asia.

IEM Road to Rio qualifier schedule

Europe:

• Second open qualifier: August 20-22.
• Third open qualifier: August 22-24.
• Fourth Open Qualifier: August 26-28.

North America:

• Second open qualifier: 31 August - 2 September.
• Third Open Qualifier: September 3-5.

South America:

• Second open qualifier: August 20-22.
• Third open qualifier: August 25-27.

Oceania:

• Second Open Qualifier: August 22-23.
• Closed qualification: August 27-28.

China:

• Second open qualifier: August 20-21.
• Closed qualification: August 27-28.

Asia:

• Second open qualifier: August 20-21.
• Closed qualification: August 27-28.

Near East:

• Second open qualifier: August 20-21.
• Closed qualification: August 27-28.

EM Rio Major 2022 will be held from October 31 to November 13 in Brazil. The first two stages of the championship will be held in a studio format. However, the playoffs of IEM Rio Major 2022, which is scheduled for November 10-13, will be held at the Jeunesse Arena, which can accommodate from 15,000 to 22,000 people. Like at the last major, the prize pool of IEM Rio Major 2022 will be $1,000,000.