Journey to the PGL Major: The Minors

At the end of April and throughout the first three weeks of May, we saw the online qualifiers for the respective Minors take place in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and CIS.

All eyes will be on fancy1's new team, Flash, next week

With all the teams locked in for each of the four Minors, and the Asia Minor starting in less than a week, we have decided to put together a quick rundown of the next qualifying stage ahead of the PGL Major.

Asia Minor (June 1-4) - two spots

The online part prior to the Asia Minor consisted of five regional qualifiers, which handed out a total of six spots, with Renegades and TYLOO filling the remaining two via direct invites.

One of the most exciting prospects of the Minor is that former TyLoo trio YuLun "Summer" Cai, YuanZhang "AttackeR" Sheng, and QiFang "Karsa" Su will make their offline debut with their new lineup, Flash, in an attempt to snatch one of the main qualifier spots for themselves.

Group A	Group B
Renegades	TYLOO
Flash	TheMongolz
Signature	Immunity
Spotnet	7642

As you may have noticed, the groups for the Asia Minor have already been revealed along with the full schedule.

The Beijing event will begin with a GSL group stage, followed by a double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs, with the grand finalists grabbing the two main qualifier spots on offer.

CIS Minor (June 8-11) - two spots

The CIS Minor's qualifiers followed a different format, which saw four teams proceed through the open stage, joining 12 invited sides in the closed part, in which the 16 teams were split into four groups.

By placing top two in their respective groups, the following eight squads have made their way to the Minor, which will run from June 8-11 in Moscow, Russia:

K29	pro100
Spartak	Quantum Bellator Fire
Spirit	Spirit Academy
Tengri	Vega Squadron

Groups and schedule for the CIS Minor are yet to be revealed by PGL, but we know that the format will be the exact same across all Minors: GSL group stage and double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs.

Americas Minor (June 8-11) - two spots

In the Americas, Immortals and Cloud9 received direct invites, while paiN secured a spot at the Minor via an open qualifier in South America. 

The North American side of things featured a two-stage process, with the 16-team closed part using an adjusted Swiss format to determine the remaining five spots on the following list:

Cloud9	Immortals
Misfits	compLexity
Luminosity	NRG
CLG	paiN

It's worth noting that Misfits will attend the Americas Minor without their in-game leader, Sean "seang@res" Gares, who had to leave his place to Skyler "Relyks" Weaver due to the 28-year-old's wedding taking place during the tournament.

The Esports Arena, in Santa Ana, California, will host the $50,000 event, which will run side-by-side with the CIS Minor, from June 8-11.

Europe Minor (June 15-18) - three spots

PGL organized four open qualifiers in Europe, each of which handed out two spots in the closed stage, featuring a classical Swiss format, with three wins awarding a spot at the Minor and three losses resulting in elimination.

While qualifiers for the other three Minors went largely as expected, Europe saw two of the favored teams left without a chance to make it to the Major. NiP were eliminated early after three stunning defeats at the hands of iGame.com, Red Reserve, and Space Soldiers, while Heroic fell to fnatic Academy in the last round.

BIG	Dignitas
Envy	fnatic Academy
iGame.com	Kinguin
LDLC	PENTA

Due to Envy being ineligible to keep the former squad's spot in the offline qualifier (with only two members of the previous roster remaining), the Europe Minor will have three spots at the offline qualifier on offer.

The venue for the last Minor, running from June 15-18, is yet to be announced by PGL. However, their studios in Bucharest are a strong possibility as the Romanian organizers held two Minor Championships there last year.

These are the teams that have already secured their place at the offline qualifier (June 29-July 2) by placing in the bottom eight at the ELEAGUE Major:

mousesports	OpTic
Liquid	HellRaisers
G2	GODSENT
FlipSid3

And the following eight are locked in for the PGL Major after finishing top eight at the ELEAGUE Major:

Astralis	Virtus.pro
SK	fnatic
Natus Vincere	Gambit
North	FaZe

For more information on each of the four Minors, you can head over to the "Upcoming events" section on our event page.