NRG withdraw from IEM Rio NA CQ days after winning OQ

Days after winning both the open qualifiers for the IEM Rio North American Closed Qualifier and the ESL Challenger Atlanta Closed Qualifier, NRG has chosen to focus on the latter tournament after ESL forced them to decide.

Damian "daps" Steele told Dust2.us that the team had to decide whether to focus on IEM Rio or ESL Challenger Atlanta due to the conflicting dates for each event.

Despite Party Astronauts being the runner-up from the first open qualifier, ESL has elected to not give them NRG's former spot in the closed qualifier, but rather will instead re-format tonight's final Open Qualifier matches to offer two spots in the Closed Qualifier.

Two teams will qualify for the IEM Rio North American Closed Qualifier in tonight's matches. Thus, the semi-finals will now be best-of-three instead of best-of-ones. Additionally, since more teams might need to withdraw from the event, there will be a third-place decider match.

Party Astronauts are the favorites to make it through to the IEM Rio Closed Qualifier, but they will face stiff competition from either undefined or FLUFFY AIMERS. LAG should be considered the top seed on the other side of the bracket, with Limitless nipping at their heels.

The final games begin in just under two hours.