RBG, Strife, Triumph, and ATK top IEM Fall Open Qualifiers
The first and second IEM Fall Open Qualifiers came to a close last week, seeing RBG, Strife, Triumph, and ATK beat back their competition to claim spots in the all-important Closed Qualifier where teams will battle for a spot in the final North American RMR event.
The first open qualifier went off without many surprises, as the first four rounds were free of any notable upsets while Detonate, Levitate, and ONET4P were some of the notable squads eliminated at this stage. The first and only true upset of the first qualifier came in the fourth round as Party Astronauts were bested by ATK in a close 19-16 loss thanks in large part due to Ian "motm" Hardy dropping 33 kills and putting up 93.09 ADR.
In the semifinals, RBG faced their only true challenge of the qualifier as they were forced into overtime against ChocoCheck on Dust2 before taking the map 19-16. On the second map, Vertigo, they rolled over ChocoCheck 16-6 to claim their spot in the Closed Qualifier.
On the other side of the bracket, Strife picked up their first notable win under their new organization as they crushed ATK 16-5 on Nuke before taking Mirage 16-12.
The complete bracket can be found here.
The second open qualifier took place last weekend and due to running concurrently with Fragadelphia 15 had a slightly worse turnout with only two Premier squads playing.
Additionally, it saw an interesting lineup compete as Triumph used inactive Party Astronauts player Wesley "viz" Harris and GGPR player Jack "xCeeD" Holiman as stand-ins in part due to Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk and Nicholas "hate" Young competing at Fragadelphia 15 with NA's Finest and Faceit Freedom Fighters, respectively. Additionally, Jeff "RZU" Ngo made what may be his final appearance with Triumph after stepping down on September 9th.
The only notable upsets of the first four rounds were created by 38th seed Nemesis, as the 3-8 Advanced squad knocked out 2nd seed Eros with a 16-11 win on Mirage in the second round before going on to best 18th seed Valors 16-7 on Mirage.
In the semi-finals, Triumph, with cxzi back in place of RZU, battled ONET4P on Dust2 to narrowly win the map 16-14 before facing stiff opposition on Inferno before taking that map 16-12.
ATK meanwhile bested Nemesis 16-13 on Mirage before the latter team forfeited the series for an undisclosed reason, paving the way for ATK to claim a spot in the Closed Qualifier.
The now complete list of teams competing in the IEM Fall Closed Qualifier is now:
 paiN |
 Bad News Bears |
| GODSENT |
oNe |
| RBG |
Strife |
| Triumph |
 ATK |
The IEM Fall north American Closed Qualifier is set to begin this weekend on September 18th.
