ESL determines seedings for IEM Rio Major Europe RMR

ESL has concluded the seeding process for the IEM Rio Major Europe Regional Major Ranking (RMR) event A and B today, one day after the team list was finalized with Benched Heroes and GamerLegion grabbing the last spots in the fourth open qualifier.

There will be 32 CS:GO teams hailing from Europe trying to qualify for the IEM Rio Major in November and only half of them will make it. They have been split into two tournaments (A and B) that will feature 12 squads that earned their slot due to their campaign at the PGL Antwerp Major in May, the first Valve-sponsored event of the year, and 20 squads that qualified via the open qualifiers.

The 12 returning European teams from the PGL Antwerp Major have been seeded between first and 12th, while the rest of the teams have been seeded in accordance with their placing in the open qualifiers. Teams that earned their slot in the first open qualifier have been seeded higher, while the ones from the fourth qualifier are at the bottom.

FaZe Clan, the winner of the PGL Antwerp Major, are the first seed of the IEM Rio Major Europe RMR A, while Natus Vincere, the runners-up of the PGL Antwerp Major, are the first seed of IEM Rio Major Europe RMR B. The seeding for the two tournaments looks as follows:

Both European RMR tournaments use a Swiss system format, in which a team must win three matches to advance to the IEM Rio Major or lose three matches to be eliminated. All matches will be best-of-one series except for the advancement and elimination games, which will be best-of-threes.

With the seedings concluded, here are the initial matchups for IEM Rio Major Europe RMR.

First round of Europe RMR A

• FaZe vs. GamerLegion
• Spirit vs. 1WIN
• NiP vs. Astralis
• G2 vs. ECSTATIC
• C9 vs. B8
• Bad News Eagles vs. Eternal Fire
• Sprout vs. forZe
• Aurora vs. Fnatic

First round of Europe RMR B

• NAVI vs. Benched Heroes
• ENCE vs. HEET
• Heroic vs. SAW
• Vitality vs. FANTASY
• BIG vs. Sangal
• Outsiders vs. Monte
• Falcons vs. K23
• MOUZ vs. OG

In addition to determining the seedings for the Europe RMR, ESL has also determined the seeding for the Asian RMR. IHC Esports are the first seed, followed by Grayhound (ex-ORDER), Rare Atom, and JiJieHao International. The Asian RMR will take place from Oct. 7 to 9, while the European RMR A and B will run from Oct. 4 to 9.

With these seedings defined, ESL only has to determine the seeding for the Americas RMR, which will be done after the open qualifiers finish on Sept. 5.