Two days ahead of the ESL One Cologne Closed Qualifier, ESL announced six teams that have been invited to the European competition and four that will be fighting for the North American slot.

The European action is set to kick off in the morning hours of this Friday, May 25, with eight teams set to battle for the two ESL One Cologne slots in a double elimination BO3 bracket. Joining the two open qualifier teams, Valiance and WASD, will be the likes of North, Gambit and Virtus.pro.

OpTic received an invite for the North American portion of the qualifier

The European Qualifier will run over two days, with the opening matchups and the full schedule available below:

Friday, May 25th 11:00 Gambit Valiance vs. 11:00 Space Soldiers HellRaisers vs. 11:00 Heroic Virtus.pro vs. 11:00 WASD North vs. 14:00 Upper Bracket Ro4 17:00 Lower Bracket Ro4a Saturday, May 26th 11:00 Lower Bracker Ro4b 14:00 Upper Bracket Ro2 & Lower Bracket Ro2a 17:00 Lower Bracket Ro2b

Making the cut in North America were Renegades, Luminosity, NRG and OpTic, but Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele followed up the announcement with a tweet declaring that his team wouldn't take part in the qualifie, as the main event overlaps with the Americas Minor. It is also interesting to note that OpTic, who are now a fully Danish team, received an invite for the North American qualifier.

It is currently unclear what will happen with NRG's slot, but the rest of the matchups are known and the schedule is as follows: