The European Closed Qualifier for the EU regional Minor went down this weekend, and eight teams have moved on to the next stage of the FACEIT London Major.
Team Kinguin, Ninjas in Pyjamas, ENCE Esports, LeftOut, OpTic Gaming, Red Reserve, Sprout Esports, and 3DMAX secured their spots in the EU Minor by placing top eight in the online Closed Qualifier. Only two teams attending the EU Minor will successfully qualify for the main event portion of the Major in September.
Related: Road to the FACEIT London Major: The format, schedule, and who’s qualified
OpTic and Kinguin earned the top seeds in the Minor by sweeping the online stage with 3-0 records. The Green Wall managed to drop only one map in the entire qualifier to EURONICS Gaming, which was a double-overtime loss on Nuke.
ENCE, NiP, and Red Reserve were the 3-1 teams to survive the Qualifier, but unsurprisingly all eyes were on NiP—the Swedes failed to qualify for the main event in the last three Valve Major cycles. After NiP lost their first best-of-three to 3DMAX, Fragsters went to three maps with NiP and almost forced a Swedish choke on match point of map three Inferno. Luckily for NiP, they won round 30 vs. Fragsters and went on to qualify for the Minor by defeating AGO Esports 2-1.
Sprout, 3DMAX, and LeftOut barely made it out of the Closed Qualifier by winning round five of the Swiss Format, stealing the last three Minor slots from AGO, Windigo Gaming, and Nordavind, respectively.
Other notable teams that didn’t quite make it through the Closed Qualifier include AGO Esports and Heroic. Heroic couldn’t win a single match the entire weekend, losing to Nordavind, EURONICS, and Epsilon Esports. Their 0-3 records is a little excusable though, because they had to play with stand-in Asger “AcilioN” Larsen instead of Ruben “RUBINO” Villarroel, who had a relapse related to an eye infection.
The European Minor will take place from July 19 to 22 in London at the Twickenham Stadium.
