Team Kinguin Falters: IEM Katowice EU Open Qualifier Day 1 Recap

An intimidating 255 teams signed up for Europe’s second and final open qualifier in hopes of reaching IEM Katowice. The single-elimination qualifier tournament began on Wednesday, with well-known teams scattered throughout the bracket. Teams that entered included Space Soldiers, the second-seeded rising Turkish squad, FlipSid3 Tactics, the only team in this qualifier that was a part of the historic ELEAGUE major last week, and many more. Once play began, eighth-seeded Fnatic Academy was immediately taken out by “n0_0rg”, an ESEA Main team, by a score of 16-6. The result is extremely disappointing after Academy had a promising showing at DreamHack Open Leipzig just a few weeks ago. Upsets continued throughout the first day, claiming victims such as the new x6tence team, Sferis PRIDE, and even the number one seed, Kinguin. The WESG runners-up shockingly fell in the fourth round (round-of-32) to Copenhagen Flames, another ESEA Main team, in a close match. The loss means that Kinguin, arguably one of the top-10 best teams in Europe, will not be competing at IEM Katowice, a tournament in their home country of Poland. After the dust settled and fire ceased, 239 teams had been eliminated from contention, leaving only the final 16:

• Space Soldiers (No. 2 Seed)
• FlipSid3 Tactics (No. 3 Seed)
• BIG (No. 4 Seed)
• ALTERNATE aTTaX (No. 5 Seed)
• Vega Squadron (No. 6 Seed)
• Epsilon eSports (No. 7 Seed)
• Fragsters (No. 54 Seed)
• BPro Gaming (No. 74 Seed)
• LaVidaLoca! (No. 112 Seed)
• Vexilla (No. 141 Seed)
• Tricked eSport (No. 152 Seed)
• eXtatus (No. 179 Seed)
• Team123 (No. 207 Seed)
• baghlan (No. 213 Seed)
• Copenhagen Flames (No. 224 Seed)
• n0_0rg (No. 249 Seed)

The above teams will try to best each other to become one of the four teams that will move on to the European Closed Qualifier against teams such as Team EnVyUs, GODSENT, and Fnatic. Here is the bracket for tomorrow’s games, courtesy of Liquipedia.net.

Who do you think will qualify? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @GAMURScom. Enblitz is a contracted writer for GAMURS. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or tips, please contact him via email (enblitz@gmail.com) or Twitter (@Enblitz). Image Credits: IzakTV