This past weekend, the European and North American qualifier saw two days of high quality matches, mixed in with the latest roster changes after the recent Major. The European qualifier saw a lot mixed up teams from the roster shuffle, the North American qualifier also had two teams with a prominent addition. Despite all this, four teams moved forward and secured their spots to play at the Intel® Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice.

European qualifier

Fnatic

Natus Vincere

Heroic

After two rounds of open qualification, the closed qualifier for IEM Katowice saw a gathering of interesting teams including Fnatic and Godsent after their recent player switches, the new G2 and EnVyUs after the French shuffle and more competing for the three available slots. With Natus Vincere, Heroic and more were also part of the tournament, there were a lot of matches the fans looked forward to.

Fnatic, with the reunited champions of IEM Katowice 2016, together with ESL One New York champions Natus Vincere, were the first two secure their tickets to Katowice. The final third spot was taken by Heroic, after overcoming both mousesports and G2 in the lower bracket, making them the third Danish team in Katowice together with North and Astralis.

North American qualifier

Immortals

With four big names, the North American qualifier saw both Team Liquid and Immortals having clear opening wins over Misfits and CLG respectively. Clashing for the single open spot to IEM Katowice, Immortals, including fnx as their recent addition for felps, came back strong after losing Cobblestone 14:16 to Liquid. 16:2 on both Overpass and Cache secured them a spot in the grand finals, where they won 2:0 over Liquid once more to join SK Gaming as the second Brazilian team in Katowice.

The next part of the puzzle is to determine in which groups these teams will compete in. Stay tuned to IEM on Facebook and Twitter for news on the group drawing and other upcoming news on IEM Katowice!

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