We are fast approaching the start of ESL One: Road to Rio. Since our initial announcement of this competition that will help teams qualify for the Rio Major in November, we’ve had to make a few adjustments to the final structure. These are the main updates:

1- Full Schedule



We initially only announced the starting dates for every region and our targeted finishing date for the competition as a whole. We can now confirm the exact dates for every region:

EU: 22nd April - 17th May

NA: 22nd April - 10th May

CIS: 30th April - 17th May

SA: 22nd April - 26th April

Asia: 6th May - 10th May

OCE: 6th May - 10th May

2- Revised Major Slot Distribution

The initial regional slot distribution was made to correspond with how each region would have been represented in Rio originally, but one of the participating teams has changed their home region, making a small adjustment necessary.

North America will lose a Challenger slot and Europe will gain one. This change will also affect regional prize pool distribution, with Europe’s rising to $115,000 (from $105,000) and North America’s decreasing to $60,000 (from $70,000).



All other regions are unaffected and slot distribution stands as follows:

Europe: 3 Legends, 6 Challenger, 2 Contenders (previously 3-5-2)

North America: 3 Legends, 1 Challenger, 1 Contender (previously 3-2-1)

CIS: 2 Legends, 1 Challenger, 2 Contenders

SA, Oceania, Asia: 1 Contender each.

3 - ESL One: Road to Rio Team List

We have now finalized the list of teams that will participate in our various regional divisions. Our first priority was to invite all teams that would have played in the Rio Majors and Minors. Afterwards, we still needed to fill some slots to make sure each region would have a viable tournament schedule with a sufficient and even number of participants.

For most regions we used rankings from the Minor Closed Qualifiers. In cases where multiple teams were on the same ranking within the last round of the Closed Qualifiers, tiebreaker matches will be played. We will announce more details about these tiebreaker matches shortly.



The following teams will participate in ESL One: Road to Rio:



Europe Region

Astralis

ENCE

Team Vitality

mousesports

G2 Esports

FaZe Clan

North

Fnatic

Complexity

Team Heretics

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Movistar Riders

Copenhagen Flames

Godsent

Dignitas

c0ntact Gaming

North America Division

Evil Geniuses

Team Liquid

100 Thieves

MIBR

FURIA Esports

Bad News Bears

Gen.G Esports

Cloud9

Triumph

Team Envy

Orgless

Yeah Gaming

CIS Division

Virtus.pro

Natus Vincere

Winstrike Team

Gambit Youngsters

Syman Gaming

Team Spirit

ESPADA

Hard Legion Esports

Team Unique

forZe

Tiebreaker Team

Tiebreaker Team

South America Division

RED Canids

BOOM Esports

Isurus Gaming

Team One

Oceania Division

Renegades

ORDER

Chiefs

Ground Zero

Asia Division

TYLOO

Vici Gaming

Mazaalai

TIGER

Lucid Dream

Camel Riders

Tiebreaker Team

Tiebreaker Team

4 - Info for streamers

Spaces are incredibly limited but we are always on the lookout for future talent. Sign up here to get your name on the official ESL shortlist as a replacement or potential future broadcaster of our content.

Stay up to date on all things ESL One Rio with our dedicated CS:GO accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

