IEM Rio Major initial seeding and Challengers Stage opening matchups set

10/10/2022 - 14:19

With all 24 IEM Rio Major teams now decided, their seeding order and matchups of the opening round of the Challengers Stage have been determined.

The Regional Major Ranking events concluded on Sunday following a week of action in Malta, Sweden, and Australia, and all 24 teams who will play at the first Brazilian Major taking place from October 31-November 13 are now known.

Specific seeding has been assigned to each team who has qualified for the Rio Major as per Valve's official Major rulebook and, as a result, the opening matchups of the first stage of the tournament have been set.

MOUZ will face Outsiders in the biggest matchup of round 1

The rulebook outlines that teams are assigned their pre-event seeding based on the results of their region's representatives at the previous Major — the final ranking from the PGL Major Antwerp in this case.

For example, as the first-placed team from the Americas RMR, Liquid have inherited the Legends status and the overall eighth seed in the Legends Stage that FURIA earned for the region by making it to the quarter-finals in Antwerp five months ago. The other five Americas teams were assigned seeds 3, 8, 11, 12, and 15 in the Challengers Stage after their representatives were ranked 11th, 16th, 19th, 20th, and 23rd last time around in Belgium.

As a result of the aforementioned seeding method, the opening matchups of the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage are the following:

Round 1
OG vs. Grayhound
Vitality vs. Imperial
Evil Geniuses vs. IHC
Cloud9 vs. fnatic
BIG vs. FURIA
Bad News Eagles vs. 00NATION
MOUZ vs. Outsiders
9z vs. GamerLegion

Below you can see the complete seeding order of each Swiss phase. This will be further used for round 2 of the Challengers Stage (right column) as well as for the first two rounds of the Legends Stage (left column).

It will also serve as a tiebreaking method when teams are tied in their difficulty score (the combined record of a team's previous opponents, also known as the Buchholz score), which is the primary seeding method for rounds 3-5.

Legends Stage
1.

FaZe
2.

Natus Vincere
3.

Ninjas in Pyjamas
4.

ENCE
5.

Sprout
6.

Heroic
7.

Spirit
8.

Liquid
9-16. Determined based on Challengers Stage results

Challengers Stage
1.

OG
2.

Vitality
3.

Evil Geniuses
4.

Cloud9
5.

BIG
6.

Bad News Eagles
7.

MOUZ
8.

9z
9.

GamerLegion
10.

Outsiders
11.

00NATION
12.

FURIA
13.

fnatic
14.

IHC
15.

Imperial
16.

Grayhound

Seems fair

2022-10-10 14:20

18 replies

FalleN will school ZywOo

2022-10-10 14:38

12 replies

he DID school hallzerk but I don't think he's at the same pedestal as the WOO

2022-10-10 14:50

Sad to say but I dont think so

2022-10-10 15:03

4 replies

Well that match will decide if imperial can be competitive vs t1 or not

2022-10-10 15:09

3 replies

The answer is No.

2022-10-10 15:15

Imperial is not ready to fight against T1. Team is suffering with T4-5... We are just passionate to see them playing.

2022-10-10 17:02

No because is a Bo1 Just a few Bo3 againts tier 1 teams can answer that question

2022-10-10 17:07

Stop being dumb.

so i can safely pick zywoo in my fantasy to get 100 free points in the opener

1 reply

for 275k sure

2022-10-10 16:50

Zywoo has no idea what is coming for him... the crowd will be so loud that he is gonna lose his mind

2022-10-10 16:51

setting yourself for disappointment. would be nice tho

2022-10-10 17:22

+1 presente profesor

2022-10-10 20:56

Liquid #8 in Legends stage????

2022-10-10 15:02

2 replies

FURIA qualified as seed 8 for Antwerp Champions Stage, didn't win a single map, so it's legend spot stayed #8. And couldn't even keep it. Omegalul

2022-10-10 15:32

More than fair cause in Americas rmr you are unlikely to play even top 20 team while the odds are teams from EU rmr had to play way more difficult teams to qualify.

2022-10-11 14:13

Pretty dumb the seeding based on swiss system on rmr. Furia won every other match really convincingly but losing one map 16-14 makes them nearly the lowest seed. Meanwhile based on that single close bo1 upset allows EG to have the third best seed. Furia should be fine anyways but EG gets a big advantage very easily. They could very easily go 2-0 by just winning IHC and 9z or gamerlegion.

2022-10-11 15:11

CS:GO Rio 2022 Major - Stickers and Coin LEAK youtube.com/watch?v=iqcmv7zIYTc

2022-10-17 19:08

nice

Cool

2022-10-10 14:22

Cloud9 vs fnatic :(( rough game

7 replies

:-( Ikr

2022-10-10 14:36

fnatic are stronger

50/50 imo

2022-10-10 14:53

Depends which c9 turn up. Blowing hot and cold at the moment. Seems shiro and hobbit need to find some consistent form. Hoping for a great game. Nicoodos and Roej playing surberbly. Mezzi fragging out and Fashr finding his feet nicely. Just hope the b8 loss was a one off.

2022-10-10 16:00

Sh1ro was a bit quiet. But Nafany is a definition of inconsistency. C9 should be winning this game but they haven't been very convincing.

2022-10-11 01:16

Honestly, if we see the Fnatic that we saw against Faze and not b8, it can be a really close game

2022-10-10 16:33

Go fantic 🙂

2022-10-10 19:18

"MOUZ will face Outsiders in the biggest matchup of round 1" C9 vs Fnatic >>> Anyway this challenger stage is more stacked than the last major

8 replies

imagine we get overpass in C9 match :D

2022-10-10 14:33

fnatic is much worse than mouz

2022-10-10 14:43

5 replies

Rofl mouz is dogshit and lucked through the RMR, literally 3.5 bots and frozen

2022-10-10 15:00

what? fnatic as well they won against 1WIN, EF and Aurora and even lost against B8 meanwhile the only teams mouz lost against were Vitality and Navi

2022-10-10 15:06

B8 >>> Mouz

2022-10-10 21:06

+111111

2022-10-13 02:14

ot against faze

2022-10-10 16:24

More stacked without G2 and Astralis, proves how much the CS:GO scene has developed in the past few years

2022-10-10 14:55

great

2022-10-10 14:25

If OG somehow fumbled against GH i will remove my flair for a month

Not possible..

2022-10-10 14:52

You already know that happenend like a year ago. Different roster i might add

2022-10-10 18:49

Oh god, imperial vs zywoo and friends. We need another miracle here fallen, let's go

lets hope el professor has a few more tricks under his sleeve for the most important major he has ever played

2022-10-10 16:17

In professor we trust

2022-10-10 16:22

2022-10-10 16:46

Chill. The great coach Lincoln "fnx" Lau has some counterstrats

2022-10-11 12:08

Vitality vs Imperial, pure fire, OG vs Outsiders as well

2022-10-10 14:26

og vs outsiders? were did you get that from?

2022-10-10 14:28

Oops actually MOUZ v outsiders**

2022-10-10 15:33

some banger matchups

2022-10-10 14:27

Pickems mens? Grayhound safest 0-3? Or IHC?

2022-10-10 14:29

22 replies

IHC>Grayhound

2022-10-10 14:31

should be, i'll go with them

2022-10-10 14:32

IHC went 0-3 at Antwerp iirc. Don't know much about Grayhound though.

14 replies

Huh?

IHC lost 0-3 at the antwerp iirc. I could be wrong though.

2022-10-10 14:37

6 replies

Either IHC or Grayhound can go in 0-3 picks I’d put grayhound tho because ihc 2-0 them before

2022-10-10 15:58

Yeah you're wrong. It takes less time to look up and find out you're wrong than write this comment, stupido. People like you who can't even check basic facts are reason of why disinformations are spreading.

2022-10-10 16:55

I didn't claim that is was correct. I responded with what I could recall :)

2022-10-10 22:51

iirc you are molester but idk i dont claim it is correct

2022-10-11 10:09

Holy you're mad. They went 1-2. So I was not that far off. I forgor, relax mane

2022-10-11 10:41

It's okay to forgot or be wrong, but it's not okay when it literally takes 5 second to check it out

2022-10-11 18:53

I picked 9z for 0-3 last time and it was right but this time I think Grayhound are probably safer

hltv.org/matches/2356119/renegades-vs-ih.. Yes so what happened at the last major?

I was wrong then. As I said "If I remember correctly". My bad.

Asian teams always win atleast 1 matc, never put them 0-3

2022-10-10 14:41

Haha, fair enough.

Thanks TYLOO for teaching that lesson to everyone

2022-10-10 14:44

definitely Grayhound, but it depends who will get luckier with matchups

prnt.sc/6iBy5vQb_Xk6 you can check ( above is my predictions) if you follow my predictions then it would be 9z vs ihc and fnatic vs greyhound at 0-2 , in that case i favour greyhound going 0-3

2022-10-10 15:05

i want to agree with you because i believe theyll go 0-3 aswell, on the other hand youve put furia going 1-3 losing against big fnatic and imperial, the same furia thats considered at least top 5 to make it through so its kinda hard to go with your predict

2022-10-10 15:21

You can fil the whole thing in to your own predictions as well and then see the 'new' 0-3 matchups

2022-10-10 22:26

Grayhound is pretty safe. IHC can upset.

2022-10-10 21:58

C9-fnatic, Mouz-Outsiders bruh

RIP Vitality

pickems pls

Go 9z

2022-10-10 14:34

Anyone know when we will get pickems?

2022-10-10 14:35

Usually a couple days before major starts

2022-10-11 05:44

rip c9

Where is g2?

Busy looking for a new IGL

2022-10-10 14:40

playing de_airportcup with Astralis

no g2 no fun

WHERE IS G2 ?

Who will play G2

2022-10-10 14:45

G2 vs Astralis side match please

when are pickems coming?

2022-10-10 14:47

guys G2 made it to legends didnt they?

2022-10-10 14:48

they will be skipping this little irrelevant tournament to save strats

2022-10-10 14:54

it is so they get extra practice time to absolutely dominate the next major

2022-10-10 15:11

g2 is the irrelevant team who has been trash

2022-10-11 01:21

Anyone can explain why Spirit got Legend spot for 4th but OG got challenger's for 4th?

7 Legends spots for Europe, so one of the RMR groups had 3 spots and the other 4

Ok but why rmr A got 4 spots and rmr B got 3, is it just random? Isn't it unfair to OG? They did exactly as good as spirit but they will have to play whole challengers stage, it would make more sense to make Spirit vs OG game as decider for 7th spot.

2022-10-11 00:40

Because RMR A had higher seeded teams I think

2022-10-11 05:34

Rmr A had the odd numbered seeds, rmr b had the even numbered seeds. That's the entire reason there.

2022-10-11 05:50

I'll explain it the way you will understand. So in RMR A we had 4 teams that maked it into the PGL Antwerps Majors playoffs, FaZe, Spirit, Heroic and NiP. Because of those 4 teams are in RMR A, they're legends spots were inherited for RMR A. That is the reason there was 4 spots for legends stage for RMR A teams. In RMR B there was only 2 teams from Amtwerps playoffs, NaVi and ENCE, the 3rd team was CPH Flames but sadly they didn't qualify to RMR through the opem qualifiers but anyway their legends spot was still inherited to Europe so thats why RMR B had only 3 legend spots in share, meanwhile RMR A had 4 in total. Also NA had 1 spot to share because of Furia played in playoffs so they inherited their spot to NA RMR

2022-10-12 08:55

thank you, very helpful!

2022-10-13 01:20

the pickems will be hard

2022-10-10 14:51

Boys do you know where to watch the event, youtube maybe or just twitch stream only

2022-10-10 14:56

Twitch

2022-10-10 15:10

Thanks bro

2022-10-10 15:27

ez4 gamerlegion

2022-10-10 14:59

sprout ruined legends stage

BNE vs 00nation best day 1 match

2022-10-10 15:07

BNE 00Nation fire match

So Bne did not sign any org ??..

They created one

Fallen going to be the dad zywoo never had. Going to give him a free awp lesson on day one

FalleN vs ZywOo hype

Fallen gonna show xi Wu how to awp

2022-10-10 15:22

Lul C9 and Vitality 0-1 already from first matches, maybe they can get 3-2 if they are lucky.

2022-10-10 15:30

Fallen vs Zywoo on LAN in Rio as the opening match. Pure entertainment

2022-10-10 15:34

+ with crowd it will surely be a great game

2022-10-10 18:52

Is there crowd for the challenger stage?

2022-10-25 03:17

first matchup seems kinda fair but hard matchups are c9 fnatic and mouz outs

2022-10-10 15:35

GL free opening match!!!

Great 1st match-up for 00Nation... Come on FalleN, have a great day and teach Xi Wu how to use AWP hehehe

the pick'ems will be hard

2022-10-10 16:06

EG and OG got the golden tickets. tough luck fr Fallen&Co.

2022-10-10 16:09

BIG vs Furia with a brazil crowd will be absolutely nuts

2022-10-10 16:34

9z lucky as hell

2022-10-10 17:03

Finally some fnatic stickers once again

OG 16-11 Grayhound Vitality 16-10 Imperial EG 16-13 IHC C9 16-9 Fnatic BIG 12-16 FURIA BNE 8-16 00NATION MOUZ 16-14 Outsiders 9Z 11-16 GL

2022-10-10 17:31

OG 16x5 Grayhound Vitallity 13x16 Imperial EG 14x16 IHC C9 12x16 Fnatic Big 15(2)x15(4) Furia BNE 9x16 00Nation 9z 16x2 GL (GOD nqz 30/5)

2022-10-10 17:41

fnatic no chance vs c9 bro

2022-10-10 17:49

if nafany gives free entry every round - 50/50

2022-10-10 17:57

My car is going on Fnatic to beat nafany I think

2022-10-10 18:10

No overtimes? Cmon dude

2022-10-10 23:08

bs seeding

2022-10-10 18:40

Goddamn mouz always bad seeds somehow

2022-10-10 18:47

im telling you right now, 9z ain't getting 0-3 in Brazil

2022-10-10 18:48

Furia: 7 | BIG: 1 This is the script

2022-10-10 18:55

Imp vs Vita. OUCH.

2022-10-10 20:09

Ez for Vitality

2022-10-10 23:01

lol to to put liquid as 8th seed is laughable and clearly biased

2022-10-11 04:21

It is explained why they're the 8th seed. It depends on the legends spot inherited for RMR NA from last major. As Furia made it to playoffs they got a legends spot for America, but as they finished #8 in legends, the #8 seed for legends stage was inherited by NA RMR. Hence liquid are #8 seed in legends. This is all by official rulebook of Valve and nothing is biased here

2022-10-12 11:16

North America Evil Geniuses vs. Mongolia IHC Kosovo Bad News Eagles vs. Brazil 00NATION ROFL

2022-10-11 04:27

Lol that vit imperial game is gonna get ROWDY

2022-10-11 08:51

BIG vs Furia gonna be a banger. Watch.

2022-10-11 18:51

no hope for imperial

2022-10-11 18:54

00 rekt

2022-10-11 22:52

Hype Brazil

2022-10-12 14:08

I love how the seeding is a snowball. If you star with good seeding on the qual, you get easy matchups, which gives you more chance to get easy matchups in the following stage. If you start with bad seeding, you get hard matchups, which means you lose more, ending up with a worse seeding because of your initial seeding. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Poor mouz

2022-10-13 19:41

28 new players where this major will be their first.

2022-10-15 03:34

OG 16-9 Grayhound Vitality 16-12 Imperial EG 13-16 IHC C9 16-7 Fnatic BIG 14-16 FURIA BNE 9-16 00NATION MOUZ 12-16 Outsiders 9Z 9-16 GL

2022-10-16 15:16