This weekend will see CEVO host an online Last Chance pre-qualifier for the MLG Columbus LAN qualifier in February, with notable teams such as SPLYCE, OpTic, and TSM taking part.

While teams will continue to vie for spots at the official MLG Columbus Main qualifier—which will run from February 26-28 at the MLG Arena in Columbus—at the remaining three Minors over the next weeks, there will also be two regional Last Chance qualifiers to give those teams who fell short at a Minor or did not attend a chance to qualify.

The first pre-qualifier will be for the North American region and run this weekend from January 23-24; one spot to the MLG Columbus Main qualifier will be up for grabs.

CEVO have now announced that they will host both upcoming online pre-qualifiers via their tournament organisation platform, as well as providing details on invited teams for the North American pre-qualifier.



seang@res will play with Torqued in the Last Chance pre-qualifier

Second to fourth place finishers at the MLG Americas Minor received automatic invites to the last chance qualifier, whereas four other teams were invited to take part. One of these which may raise eyebrows is Torqued, a team featuring known players in the North American scene such as Mohamad "⁠mOE⁠" Assad, Ronnie "⁠ryx⁠" Bylicki, and ex-Cloud9 IGL Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares.

The seven teams to take part in the Last Chance pre-qualifier are:

SPLYCE SPLYCE Winterfox Winterfox OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming Torqued Torqued Games Academy Games Academy NRG NRG TSM TSM

The format for the pre-qualifier is a single elimination, best-of-three bracket. Because SPLYCE finished second place at the MLG Americas Minor, Arya "⁠arya⁠" Hekmat's team automatically advance to the semifinal and await the winner of Torqued and Games Academy. The full bracket can be seen here.

The tentative schedule for the pre-qualifier is:

Saturday, January 23rd OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming NRG vs.NRG 19:00 Torqued Torqued Games Academy vs.Games Academy 21:30 Winterfox Winterfox TSM vs.TSM 00:00 Sunday, January 24th Semifinal #1 19:30 Semifinal #2 21:30 Grand Final 00:30

A CIS/Europe Last Chance pre-qualifier will also be run by CEVO and take place from February 2-7, it will give out two spots to the MLG Columbus Main qualifier.

All the action for the North American Last Chance pre-qualifier can be caught over at MLG.tv/playCEVO when the games kick off.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter