Road to ELEAGUE Major: The Minors

Eight teams are already invited to the ELEAGUE Major in January after their placing in the top eight at the PGL Major Krakow. The bottom eight that exited the last Major in the groups are looking on as they await the results of the Minors.

They will soon begin, with Asia and CIS taking place this prolonged weekend from October 26-29, followed by Europe and the Americas next week, from November 2-5. The top two in each region will not only split $50,000, they will also take the next step towards qualifying for the Major.

The road to the next ELEAGUE Major continues with the Minors

Most will have to make do with disappointment, but some of these 32 teams may end up going all the way, as did Kevin "⁠kRYSTAL⁠" Amend's PENTA in the last cycle, against all odds.

CIS Minor - October 26-29 (Bucharest, Romania)

Spirit and Tengri were the only two teams directly invited to the CIS Minor. The remaining sides were supposed to come from a single online qualifier, but only four did - AVANGAR, pro100, NOTBAD, and Quantum Bellator Fire.

FONTAN were disqualified after one of their players failed to submit a copy of his passport to the organizers, while Fantazeri had to withdraw as they'd be unable to travel to Bucharest in the end.

The disqualified team was replaced by Nemiga, who had lost to FONTAN in the deciding stage. Fantazeri's spot went to FORZE, who defeated Space Jam and hateMania in the last-chance qualifier.

Tengri	Spirit
NOTBAD	pro100
Quantum Bellator Fire	AVANGAR
Nemiga	FORZE

Asia Minor - October 26-29 (Seoul, Korea)

For the first time, the entire Asia Minor team list was determined via invites, among which are the finalists of the previous three Minors, Renegades and TYLOO.

MVP PK, featuring the core of the Counter-Strike 1.6 team known as project_kr and WeMade FOX, will be making their first Minor appearance after undergoing changes last month.

Joining them in Seoul, Korea, will be Flash, TheMongolz, as well as Australia's Tainted Minds and Kings. Initially, ViCi also received an invite, but Bin "⁠Savage⁠" Liu and company were forced to pull out following visa issues, with BOOT-d[S] taking their place.

TYLOO	Flash
Renegades	Kings
Tainted Minds	BOOT-d[S]
TheMongolz	MVP PK

Europe Minor - November 2-5 (Bucharest, Romania)

Europe's side of things featured a two-step process. Eight teams first made their way through the endless open qualifier and were joined by eight invited sides in the closed qualifier on the following day.

One of the biggest stories of the closed qualifier was Ninjas in Pyjamas's failure to qualify for the Minor for the second time in a row, this time after a loss to PRIDE in the last round of the Swiss format.

Meanwhile, four teams that had to go through the open stage, the aforementioned Poles, eXtatus, ex-Outlaws, and AGO made it to Bucharest after a few upsets. As expected, OpTic and Envy succeeded, as did Space Soldiers and GODSENT.

OpTic	Space Soldiers
Envy	ex-Outlaws
AGO	eXtatus
GODSENT	PRIDE

Americas Minor - November 2-5 (Toronto, Canada)

As in the CIS region, the Americas Minor knew its first two teams from the get-go. Liquid and CLG were invited directly, while the remaining six had to go through a set of qualifiers.

South American open qualifier winner, TeamOne, grabbed one of them, while the remaining five advanced through a two-step qualifier in North America, not unlike the one used in Europe.

NRG and Complexity were the first to lock their spots at the Minor, followed by Rise Nation, Luminosity, and FRENCH CANADIANS. However, the team around Yassine "⁠Subroza⁠" Taoufik pulled out following a problem with a visa, and the last-chance format had to be used again.

The three-way qualifier between Misfits, SoaR, and Immortals ended with Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares' team at the top, securing FRENCH CANADIANS' spot at the Americas Minor.

CLG	Liquid
Complexity	NRG
Luminosity	Rise Nation
Misfits	TeamOne