The decision has been taken by ESL after coming under a lot of scrutinies by players and fans alike, as it would require teams to miss out on other events if they wanted to play in the RMR qualifier.
It was announced last month that IEM Fall would be the last RMR event for every region in order to qualify for the PGL Stockholm Major at the end of the year. And like every RMR tournament, teams would have the chance to qualify via open qualifiers and then through closed qualifiers if they wanted to make it to the main event.
But what ESL didn’t take into consideration was that a lot of teams vying for the spot, would also be playing Fragdelphia 15, during the same time period. Ever since Valorant has been raking in the numbers, Fragdelphia is one of the very few tournament organizers left in North American CS, trying to keep the scene alive, and having to miss out on it would be a big blow, especially for lower-tier teams.
After a lot of players expressed their grievances, as well as a former player and twitch streamer Erik ‘fl0m’ Flom, ESL and DreamHack took note and did their due diligence, moving the tournament so it doesn’t clash with the pre-planned LAN tournament, Fragdelphia 15. The Australia and New Zealand qualifiers for DreamHack have been rescheduled as well.
IEM Fall North American qualifiers:
- Open Qualifier #1: September 7-8
- Open qualifier #2: September 11-12
- Closed qualifier: September 18-19
These qualifiers were earlier scheduled from August 28th till September 12th.