THE Australian esports scene has been given a massive boost with a fourth local team invited to next week’s IEM Sydney event.

IEM Sydney, which takes place at the Qudos Bank Arena from May 4 to 6 (with group stages from May 1 at ESL’s studio), is a 16-team Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament with a prize pool of $US250,000.

Visa issues have forced European teams Space Soldiers and Natus Vincere to pull out of the event.

In their place will be the primarily French side G2 Esports and Australian team Legacy Esports, who finished fourth in the Oceanic qualifier.

While G2 has been a mainstay on the international stage, it’s a huge boon for Legacy, which is owned by the AFL’s Adelaide Crows.

Three local teams qualified for the event earlier in April; Grayhound Gaming, Chiefs Esports Club and ORDER.

A G2 Esports player in action at IEM Katowice. Photo credit: Kelly Kline/ESL Source: Supplied

G2 and Legacy will directly take the places of Na’Vi and Space Soldiers in the bracket, meaning that there will be an Australia v Australia match-up in the first round of the group stage.

Legacy will face the US-based Australian team Renegades, while G2 will play Korean outfit MVP PK.

“We have just confirmed that both Natus Vincere and Space Soldiers will drop from IEM Sydney 2018 due to VISA complications. We know that both teams were looking forward to travelling to Australia to compete and meet their international fan base,” IEM product manager Shaun Clark said.

“In both cases, not all of their teams roster were granted visas and with the long travel time to Australia and the event set to begin on Tuesday, we had to make the call in order to protect the tournament and still find suitable replacements.

“With this decision we are incredibly thankful to G2 Esports & Legacy Esports to join as replacements on such short notice.“

ORDER faces FaZe Clan, Chiefs faces Fnatic and Grayhound faces Cloud9 in the opening round of the group stage which begins on May 1.