ESL Removes Minor Invites and Announces Qualifier Dates

ESL will not distribute invites for teams to compete at the IEM Katowice Minors, according to a new ESL post. Only mousesports and Winstrike Team will be invited to the Minors because of their record from FACEIT Major: London.

ESL announced an update to its format for the IEM Katowice Minors. It got rid of invites for the Minors and will require all Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams who wish to compete at the Minor, and possibly Major, to participate in open and closed qualifiers.

"For each regional Minor we have decided to change the format to be completely inclusive where all teams competing will be required to qualify online," the post read. "There will be no invitations issued directly to any teams to compete in the Minor. Open qualifiers will remain open for all competitive teams across the globe, however highly ranked professional teams will still be invited into the final stages of each regional qualifier."

Mousesports and Winstrike Team finished in 15-16th place at FACEIT Major: London and were originally invited to the IEM Katowice Major under the New Challenger status, but because ESL will no longer invite teams that place 15-16th place to the next Major, the teams will be invited to the Minor instead.

The post also revealed the dates for open qualifiers in each region, which begin as early as Oct. 22 for regions like Europe and North America.