IEM Rio Major is the 2nd CS:GO Major of the season and one of the few remaining $1 million events of 2022. The tournament is scheduled to take place in the first half of November and its number of participants is 24. For CS:GO fans, this will be a great opportunity to watch some high-level matches and bet on CS:GO.
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IEM Rio Major Dates and Location
As the name of the tournament suggests, IEM Rio Major will take place in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) between October 31st – November 13th. This means that we will get to watch 2 weeks of quality CS:GO.
Because it’s a Major, IEM Rio will take place in 3 stages.
The Challengers Stage: October 31st – November 3rd
Based on the results of the qualifiers, 8 teams will receive the Contender status, 8 will receive the Challenger status, and 8 will receive the Legend status. The first stage of the tournament will be a battle between the Challengers and the Contenders.
The competitive format used for this stage is the Swiss System. This means that each day will feature matches between teams with identical win-loss scores. The elimination and qualification matches are Bo3. The remaining matches are Bo1. To qualify, a team must accumulate 3 victories. To get eliminated, a team must accumulate 3 losses.
Out of the 16 participants, 8 will qualify for the 2nd stage of the tournament.
The Legends Stage: November 5th – 8th
The Legends Stage is a battle between the teams that survived The Challengers Stage and the 8 Legends of the competition. Just like in stage 1, the competitive format will be the Swiss System. The 8 winners advance to the playoffs.
The Champions Stage: November 10th – 13th
The Champions Stage or the playoffs consists of a single-elimination competition. Every match is Bo3. The winner receives $500,000 and a ticket to IEM Katowice 2023.
Participants
The teams that will take part in IEM Rio Major are yet to be determined. There will be 4 qualifiers in total, scheduled to take place between October 4th – 9th. And those qualifiers will have their own qualifiers, in the sense that to play in a regional qualifier, a team must go through open qualifiers. The exceptions are the top teams in each region.
For example, it wouldn’t make any sense to ask teams like Natus Vincere or FaZe Clan to compete in open qualifiers. But they will compete in the regional qualifiers. And if they fail to obtain good results, they will simply not participate at the Major.
European RMR A
This is one of the two European qualifiers for IEM Rio Major. It will feature 16 teams and 8 of them will go to Brazil. The top 4 of these teams will receive the Legend status at the Major, which means they’ll enter the competition only in stage 2.
So far, the teams that have been selected to take part in this European RMR are these:
- FaZe Clan
- Team Spirit
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- G2 Esports
- Cloud9
- Bad News Eagles
The 12 teams who will join them are yet to be determined via 4 open qualifiers. Each of these open qualifiers will allow 5 teams to advance. In total, 20 teams will advance: 10 to the first European RMR (A) and 10 to the second European RMR (B).
Of the 6 teams that are already selected for the first European qualifier, FaZe Clan, Team Spirit, NiP, G2, and C9 should easily finish in the top 8. The competitive format will be Swiss System, so it’s unlikely that they’ll lose 3 matches.
Unless, of course, more than one of them will lose the opening match, and then the big teams will be unlucky enough to always bump into each other.
European RMR B
This will be the second European qualifier and 8 of its teams will advance to IEM Rio Major. The top 3 of them will receive the Legend status.
So far, 6 of the 16 participants have been selected:
- Natus Vincere
- ENCE
- Heroic
- Team Vitality
- BIG
- Outsiders
The rest will be decided in the coming days and weeks.
One thing that was announced in recent days is that Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev will continue to play for Natus Vincere for the foreseeable future. He was obviously very good at the latest two tournaments, in which Na’Vi finished 1st and 2nd respectively. So why change the formula?
With this lineup, Na’Vi should easily qualify for the Major. And there’s a high chance that they’ll finish in the top 3. As for the other 7 teams that will make it, first we’ll have to see who else will compete in this qualifier.
Normally, the teams that didn’t have to go through the open qualifiers should all prove their worth. But statistically, it’s nearly impossible to not have a single upset in the entire qualification process.
American RMR
In the American qualifier, 6 teams will advance and only one will receive the Legend status at the Major. The competition features 16 participants and 3 of them have already been selected:
- FURIA Esports
- Imperial Esports
- Team Liquid
Asia-Pacific RMR
In the Asia-Pacific RMR, only 4 teams will be featured and the top 2 of them will go to the Major as Contenders. None of the 4 teams have been decided yet, but we will soon find out who they are.
Favorites
If everything goes according to plan, FaZe Clan and Natus Vincere are likely to meet again in the Grand Final of the Major. Both of these teams have looked unbeatable at recent tournaments and their rosters are much better than those of the other CS:GO teams.
On all the other teams, formidable players compete alongside lesser-skilled ones. But on Na’Vi and FaZe Clan, almost everyone is a superstar. Keep that in mind if you make predictions about this tournament or bet on other esports competitions related to CS:GO.
For the sake of the spectacle, it would be nice to see all of the big teams at the tournament, But, as it’s often the case, some of them will miss the boat.