This week saw the CIS Minor and the Americas Minor come to a close. As these first two Minors end, the four qualified teams coming to the FACEIT Major London 2018 are now set.

They will be joined by another four squads next week to make it eight teams for the Major.

So, who are the initial four who qualified from the Americas and from the CIS region? We will be taking a closer look at the teams.

The FACEIT Major Qualification Process

There’s 3 step qualifications process, simplified below:

Open Qualifiers : Everyone can bring their team to the first qualification phase. Open qualifiers were available in more than 8 regions including Southeast Asia, South America, Europe and others. There were four open qualifiers for America and Europe, each one rewarding two spots in the next phase.

more than 8 regions including Southeast Asia, South America, Europe and others. There were four open qualifiers for America and Europe, each one rewarding two spots in the next phase. Closed Qualifiers : T he top 8 teams from the open qualifiers are joined by 8 invited teams in an online tournament . The top 8 teams from the Closed Qualifier advance to the Minor. It’s worth noting that Asia doesn’t have a Closed Qualifier and teams automatically advance for the Asia Minor.

he top 8 teams from the open qualifiers are joined by 8 invited teams in an online tournament Minor : The current final stage of the qualification process. There’s four Minors (Europe, Asia, Americas and CIS) and all of which run in an offline tournament. There’s two stages of the Minor, the group stage and the playoffs. The playoffs feature the top two teams. From the two groups of the previous stage and two brackets (upper and lower). One spot is guaranteed for each bracket, and all matches in the playoffs are BO3s. Reaching the top of the upper or lower bracket guarantees the team a spot in the first stage of the Major.

The America Minor Champions – compLexity

Since 2014, compLexity haven’t had a roster qualified for Valve Majors. The team was rebuilt last year and adding duo ‘stanislaw’ and ‘ShahZam’ and finally finished their absence of Majors.

compLexity was invited to the Closed Qualifers for the Minor. There, the team did a complete sweep beating out Dignitas, Mythic and Ghost. In this initial stage, it was the 24-years-old Canadian ‘ANDROID’ who took the spotlight with a HLTV rating of 1.39.

Qualifying for the Americas Minor, their first challenges were FURIA and Rogue in the group stage. The Brazilians from FURIA weren’t a threat to ‘yay’ who had a 2.11 rating in their match but the team failed to beat Rogue.

coL then had to face Dignitas but ANDROID shone once more and took out them in a BO3. Advancing to the playoffs, the squad managed to upset NRG but once again lost to Rogue. In the loser bracket, they managed to beat eUnited in a BO3 where the winner would have been qualified for the Major. In the grand final, both teams were already qualified and they were only fighting for the lion share of the $50.000 prize pool. coL took revenge on Rogue and the $30.000 first place prize.

What to expect from Stanislaw and his team

It’s clear that compLexity’s results are dependent on yay and ANDROID performances. The two are often on point but at the same time they can feel pressure and crumble as we saw in the past.

CompLexity’s opponents are aware of that and will try to shut them down early in the game. We know that while ShahZam, their awper, hasn’t been performing very well, he has the capability of doing damage when on point.

With the player break incoming, Stanislaw should work heavily on their game plan. The first priority is to find a way to reduce their dependence on yay and ANDROID, making ShahZam a more valuable asset.

He also will have to address ‘dephh’ at some point. The English player has been really unreliable and this will surely cause problems. If dephh can’t find some form, compLexity will have problems to advance for the second stage of the tournament.

The CIS Champions – HellRaisers

Having skipped Krakow 17’ and Boston 18’, HellRaisers are back in the Valve Majors with London 18’. The CIS powerhouse had a rise early this year after winning BET Masters Cup 2018 and the squad kept being a threat.

The team faced some internal problems but, in the end, they managed to surpass these in the Road to London. Their first stop was the CIS Minor Closed Qualifier where they did a clean sweep beating 5Balls, El’quvet and Nemiga.

In the CIS Minor, the team also didn’t had problems to claim their spot in the Major. Opening the tournament against PLINK Tech, the team won all their group stage matches. In the playoffs, they beat pro100 and Spirit to book the first spot from the CIS region.

Can HellRaisers go deep in London?

It’s clear that ISSAA and Woxic are elite players and ANGE1 is a highly capable leader. Bondik also seems to be a very important asset for this team current formation. However, it’s hard to find appraisal for Deadfox, as the Hungarian is the current lowest ranked member in the team.

While Deadfox is usually the bottom fragger of the team, he seems to be doing his job as a support player which is a very important task. ISSAA and Woxic while unexperienced seems to be becoming better as their go to more LANs.

The team certainly can make out of the first stage of the major. It will depend on bondik form and the preparation they do in the player break of August. We can’t forget however that HellRaisers final placement will heavily depends on the seedings of the tournament. They certainly can beat teams like North, but Astralis for example is out of the realm of possibilities.

The Americas Surprise – Rogue

We didn’t expect from Hiko’s team in the Americas Minor. compLexity and NRG were the favorites and there was little to no vague for Rogue. The team entered in the Road to London being invited for the Minor Closed Qualifier. There, Rogue managed to advance to the Minor with a 3 – 1 score, only losing to NRG.

In the Americas Minor, Rogue beat Dignitas and did managed to upset compLexity, consequently advancing for the playoffs. There, Rogue avoided their nemesis NRG and beat eUnited and CompLexity to book a spot in the Major.

What Rogue can accomplish in their first Major?

While this is the first Major for Rogue as a team, four of their players have been in Majors already. CadiaN, the third best performing player in the Minor has been absent since 2014 and Rickeh, the fifth high performer since 2015. Hiko, who reached the grand finals of ESL One Cologne 2016 also saw a resurgence in his performance which will be very important.

For the team success, two players especially are going to be needed to be on point: Sick and CadiaN. Those two have been the firepower core of Rogue and their performance are fundamental for this team.

Rogue has everything to advance to the second stage of the tournament like HellRaisers. The team seems to be very well composed and confident with their latest results. The only question mark is ‘vice’, the only player who never attended to a Major in Rogue has been seriously inconsistent lately.

If Rickeh and his squad iron out their tactics and map pool, even top 10 teams will have to be cautious against Rogue. But for this, vice can’t drop the ball for the pressure he will be taking on the stage.

Some Qualify Young – Team Spirit

Team Spirit, home of the famous Ukrainian player ‘somedieyoung’ finally managed to qualify for a Major. Spirit who has been trying to achieve a Major spot since Atlanta 2017 is first Major ever. Their most experience player ‘davcost’ is also the only one with previous experience in Majors.

Just like the other three teams listed above, Spirit was invited for the CIS Minor Closed Qualifier. There, Spirit managed to have a 3 – 0 score, beating out DreamEaters, AVANGAR and forZe, proceeding to the CIS Minor this week. In the Minor things started to be more difficult, although they managed to close out in their favor.

In the group stage, the team beat Monolith and forZe without problems. Reaching the playoffs though, they couldn’t challenge pro100, consequently falling to the Lower Bracket.

There, Spirit upset a very weakly and badly-prepared AVANGAR and booked their Major spot with a revenge on pro100.

What it’s expected from somedieyoung and his squad?

While Spirit has been a threat in their region, they don’t have as much experience in international scenarios. Davcost being their most experience player isn’t a favorable fact for them coming in their first Major.

In London, Spirit should go with to learn. While playing against teams of every other region, Spirit should be able to improve based on what they learn and then use it in upcoming tournaments.

Somedieyoung is proving himself to be a rough gem and so is COLDYY1. Those two are definitely the players to watch for Spirit. If this duo overperform as they did in the Minor, teams like Virtus.Pro and North have to be ware of them.

The Europe and Asia Minors are coming next

Next week we will be following the Europe and Asia Minors. There we will be seeing the last four teams to qualify for the FACEIT Major London 2018.

Who will you be rooting for next week? Can NiP and OpTic overcome their problems and make it through? Will TyLoo be able to finally attend a Major? Tell us in the comments!