Liquid and Legacy claim IEM Rio CQ Invites

ESL have announced invites for the Closed Qualifiers for IEM Rio 2024, with Liquid and Legacy claiming the spot spots in the NA Closed Qualifier. The duo will be joined by two teams from the two open qualifiers, which are set to start on August 14th and August 18th, respectively.

Via the Closed Qualifier, North America will aim to send a second team to the Brazilian event, with NA's sole representative at the moment being Complexity while FURIA, 9z, and paiN are the other Americas teams earmarked for the event.

The IEM Rio Qualifiers have drawn some degree of consternation from the North American scene due to ESL forcing teams to choose between the qualifiers for the IEM event and the ones for ESL Challenger Atlanta.

With this, at the time of publication it isn't immediately clear which event NA's teams are favoring, with the top ESL Challenger League teams yet to sign up for either event. It is possible teams are currently in a game of chicken waiting to see who selects which qualifier while also waiting for ESL to make a final decision on the Closed Qualifier invites for ESL Challenger Atlanta.

The team list for the IEM Rio NA Closed Qualifier is currently: