The dates and details about the open and closed qualifiers for the third installment of IEM Sydney have been revealed.

The $250,000 tournament will take place in Sydney, Australia on April 30 - May 5th, with the playoffs once again returning to the Qudos Bank Arena.

With their most recent announcement, ESL corrected a mistake from an earlier post which stated that there would be eight invited and eight qualified teams. Instead, of the 16 teams competing at the event, nine will be invited and seven will earn a spot through the qualifiers. Also, the number of qualifier slots reserved for teams from Oceania went down from three to one, although ESL hinted that there would be another Oceanic slot up for grabs.

The qualification cycle for IEM Sydney starts at the end of January

Qualifiers for all regions will feature an open and closed part. Two open qualifier cups will be held and played as BO1 until the deciding match, which will be BO3, and two teams from each cup will advance to the closed qualifier. There, they will be joined by four invited teams and a double-elimination BO3 bracket will be played out, with a BO5 final. Only the best team from each regional qualifier will earn a spot at IEM Sydney 2019.

The dates for the qualifiers are as follows.

Europe

Open qualifier #1: January 30-31, 18:00 CET

Open qualifier #2: February 2-3, 18:00 CET

Closed qualifier: February 6-8

North America

Open qualifier #1: January 30-31, 18:00 EST

Open qualifier #2: February 2-3, 18:00 EST

Closed qualifier: February 6-8

Greater China

Open qualifier #1: March 6-7, 18:00 SGT

Open qualifier #2: March 19-20, 18:00 SGT

Closed qualifier: March 22-24

East Asia

Open qualifier #1: March 6-7, 18:00 SGT

Open qualifier #2: March 19-20, 18:00 SGT

Closed qualifier: March 22-24

Southeast Asia

Open qualifier #1: March 6-7, 18:00 SGT

Open qualifier #2: March 19-20, 18:00 SGT

Closed qualifier: March 22-24

Oceania

Open qualifier #1: March 30-31, 12:00 AEDT

Open qualifier #2: April 6-7, 12:00 AEDT

Closed qualifier: March 22-24

Only the best team from each regional qualifier will advance to IEM Sydney 2019. For more information about the qualifiers, check the official announcement.

As of now, the team list looks as follows: