BIG Will Drop Out of Major Early? IEM Rio Major 2022 Stage Challengers Preview

The long-awaited IEM Rio Major 2022 starts today. Only half of the 16 teams in the first stage will make it to Legends. So we figure out together what chances anyone has.

Clear Favourites

The results of recent tournaments, along with the experience of LANs, dooms Vitality, Cloud9, Virtus.pro and OG to success in the Challengers stage of the Major. However, at least one team from this four will reach the playoffs, having accelerated at the start of the championship.

Hopeless Outsiders

While some teams are chosen as candidates for 3-0 in Pick' Em, there are those for which even one won bo1 will exceed the fans' expectations. Grayhound, IHC and GamerLegion have very illusory chances of getting into the "Legends" - the representatives of Asia and Oceania lack the practice of playing against other regions, which will directly affect the result, and the "legionnaires" did not have to go to tier-1 events, except perhaps for acoR this will not be new.

Budding

MOUZ, Fnatic, FURIA, EG - this quartet hasn't scored any high-profile victories at the prestigious championships this year, but carving out three wins in the group should be a manageable task. But it is Evil Geniuses that raises the most questions regarding whether they will be able to show the same thing as on the American RMR, where they took second place. A 3-2 result for the Americans is likely, but not better.

Neither Fish Nor Fowl

BIG, BNE, Imperial, 9z, 00NATION - the last five teams, we don't know what to expect, and they have little in common either.

BIG already played the tournament without faveN due to his illness, and with him, the club climbed into the top 3 from time to time in the first half of the year. Without him, everything is consistently bad.

Bad News Eagles miraculously got a ticket to the Challengers, snatching it from forZe on RMR, but at the same time, at the recent Elisa Invitational Fall 2022, they managed to lose TYLOO dry. So in bo1, everything will definitely not be easy for the Kosovars.

Imperial, 9z and 00NATION are three very problematic squads, but this trinity must be written off. The stadium's atmosphere with crowds of fans from the home region can help surpass at least the same FURIA and EG, which always had difficulties.