ESL and Intel Extreme Masters on their Twitter handle have confirmed that the next major event of Counter Strike: Global Offensive will be held in Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. The tournament will run from October 31 till the 13th of November with 24 teams to battle through the event for that Major Championship alongside a lion’s share of $500,000 USD from the $1M prize pool.
With this massive announcement from ESL, the IEM Rio major now stands confirmed after the game developer’s most recent tweet indeed hinted towards the same.
Initially the IEM: Rio Major, which would have been the 16th major in the history of CSGO was supposed to take place in 2020 but was sabotaged by the Coronavirus Pandemic and was later replaced by PGL. As yet, no changes have been introduced in the format of the said tournament which states that 24 teams would be able to compete across three stages of the Major namely Challengers, Legends, and the Champions.
The Challengers Stage would be a classic 16-team Swiss Stage with the top eight teams qualifying for the Legends Stage and the remaining eight would be eliminated from contention. Advancement and elimination match-ups would rely on a Best of 3 results while all other matches would be Best of 1s. The Legends Stage would follow the same format as Challengers.
IEM Rio Major 2022 Event Details
- Intel Extreme Masters: Rio
- Championship Tier: Major by Valve
- Dates: October 31 – November 13, 2022
- Location: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
- Venue: Jeunesse Arena
CS:GO returns to Brazil after four years with the ESL One: Belo Horizonte being the last tournament held in 2018. The IEM Rio Major 2022 would be the first-ever major to be played on Brazilian soil.
Sale of the playoffs tickets will go live this Wednesday at 14:00 PM BRT / 22:30 PM IST here. In a chain of tweets, ESL has announced that the audience with an ESL One Rio 2020 ticket would also be able to attend the event.
We couldn’t be more excited to finally bring the Major to Rio de Janeiro. The ever-growing and passionate Brazilian esports community is amazing and for the past couple of years we have been hoping to provide the fans with one of the greatest esports experiences ever. Now the time is finally here and we can’t wait for the world’s best CS:GO teams to ultimately enter the Jeunesse Arena and have it shake to its foundations from the excitement from Brazil and beyond.
Ulrich Schulze, SVP Product Management at ESL Gaming
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