Fans pick three Americas teams to advance

A recent Reddit post highlighted the selections of fans on PickStop in regards to which of the sixteen squads in the IEM Cologne Play-In would be making their way to the main stage of the event. Despite Americas teams having a relatively rough start to the event at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, three of the four Americas squads at the Play-In are more favored to move forward by fans than not.

Topping the charts for the Americas is FURIA, with a whopping 94% of fans selecting the Brazilian side to move forward, suggesting a high confidence in the recent signings of Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo and Marcelo "chelo" Cespedes, as well as the teams relatively easy opening BO1 matchup versus Grayhound to kick things off. Having missed out on the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, FURIA's image heading out of the off-season remains untempered, with the hopes that the team may have the potential to kick things off in a honeymoon period remaining untarnished by any losses.

Just behind FURIA in the charts is Liquid, who have captured 92% of fans as believers, an interesting observation considering how the squad sputtered out of the latter half of the recent BLAST Premier Fall Groups. Despite beating FaZe the first time around in the Fall Groups, the second time around proved to be far more difficult, as Finn "karrigan" Andersen's men moved past Liquid with ease. The team's subsequent match against Astralis proved no easier, with the Danish side trouncing Liquid 2-0 to cut the team short of a Fall Finals appearance. Facing off against Astralis once again in the opening match of the Play-In, it is impressive that Liquid has still managed to garner the support of 94% of fans to move forward to the main event.

The final Americas team to reach the top eight of the squads selected is Complexity, who have garnered 54% of participating fans to select them to move forward, even despite a worse Fall Groups showing than that provided by Liquid. After notching a narrow win versus NIP, Complexity was unable to do real damage against Vitality, and struggled to repeat their success against NIP the second time around. Once in the Knockout Stage, Astralis sent the American side packing with a quick 2-0. As Complexity's opening pick of fnatic still remains an unknown entity, it is understandable why some fans have decided to give Complexity the benefit of the doubt in qualification.

The full list of the rates at which teams were selected to advance is:

The selections of fans will truly be tested beginning tomorrow, with the opening matches of the IEM Cologne Play-In slated for 08:30AM Wednesday morning.