Tomorrow, October 4, the first matches for the right to qualify for the major in Brazil will begin, which promises to be hot not only because of the climate and the increased prize pool but also because of the ardent fans. Look at IEM Road to Rio: Group A and see what we can expect.

Undeniable Legends

The trinity of G2, Cloud9 and FaZe performed well enough to qualify for a spot in the Major's Legends. It won't be a big revelation that karrigan and his team aren't as dangerous as they were earlier this year, but Group A shouldn't be that hard.

Zone of the Unexplored Challengers and Contenders

The trinity mentioned above is almost guaranteed to get into the most prestigious stage of the major, but there are four slots on Legends. Also, two tickets to Challengers and Contenders are played in group A. For five places, a list of 7 worthy applicants emerges:

• Fnatic
• Spirit
• Astralis
• NIP
• Eternal Fire
• forZe
• Bad News Eagles

When compiling the list, the results of a particular club at the last EPL 16 for those who played there, as well as CCT Central Europe Series #2, where forZe won, and the qualifiers for the BLAST Showdown, where Eternal Fire took the championship, were taken into account.

Bad News Eagles look the most unconvincing due to the small number of official games against tier-1 teams.

Astralis may also be lower due to ongoing instability. It is unlikely that morale will be positively affected by the fact that one of the portals reports about the redemption of device from NIP, presumably returning to the Danish club after the major.

Outsiders

It is expected that some teams' success in the open qualifiers is hard to believe.

Sprout, for example, made a substitution by signing Zyphon and refrezh but failed to succeed in the last three qualifiers for different tournaments. With the current calibre of teams, it will be tough to get into Contenders, even if the team has been preparing hard.

B8 and 1WIN have a common feature - 1-2 individually strong players who should have joined a stronger team for a long time. This applies to deko, r1nkle, and to some extent to cptkurtka023. Sometimes they manage to win against solid tier-2 lineups, but they lack consistency. As a result, these teams have a higher chance of getting into Contenders, but still very low.

Least of all belief in the success of GamerLegion, Aurora and ECSTATIC. The latter, however, managed to get to the BLAST Fall Showdown through the regional qualifier, having beaten ENCE without a hitch. Aurora, in turn, is remembered for their victory over Astralis in the first RMR qualifiers. GamerLegion didn't have similar episodes, and they didn't remember much on their way to the tournament - the power of the duo acoR and siuhy, who played for MOUZ, is hardly enough to go to Rio.

The European RMR matches will take place from 4 to October 9. As a result of the tournament, seven teams will go to the Major, 6 to Challengers, and 3 to Contenders. The start of IEM Rio Major 2022 itself is scheduled for October 31.