9z, O PLANO through to IEM Rio Americas RMR

The second South America open qualifier for the IEM Rio Americas RMR has come to an end, awarding 9z and O PLANO with spots at the Major-qualifying event following their best-of-three victories over Case and Fluxo, respectively.

Due to a number of technical problems involving a lack of servers and GOTV stability issues during the first qualifier, play was moved to FACEIT for the second bracket. Over 200 teams took part in an effort to qualify for the Americas RMR, with half of the teams that made it to the top sixteen from the previous qualifier returning to the same stage for a second attempt.

None of those teams managed to qualify this time around either though, and instead it was 9z who claimed the first spot. The Maximiliano “⁠max⁠” Gonzalez-led side had been knocked out in the round of 32 by Isurus in the first qualifier, but proved successful in their effort this time around as they made it to the qualifying match with wins over Sharks and B4.

There, Case gave them some trouble after opening the series up with a narrow win on Inferno, but 9z showed tenacity as they put up strong scorelines in the first halves of Nuke and Mirage to battle back and claim the win for their own.

On the other side of the bracket, Vito “⁠kNgV-⁠” Giuseppe‘s O PLANO also recovered from their knockout from the first qualifier, beating Arvum and Los Grandes en route to series play. There they went up against Fluxo, who kicked off the deciding match in strong form with a dominant 13-4 lead on Dust2.

However, Vinicius “⁠vsm⁠” Moreira and company struggled to close things out from there and O PLANO fought all the way back to force overtime, where a number of key multi-kills from kNgV- helped them close out the map. Fluxo answered back on Vertigo, coming back from an 11-14 deficit of their own to take the map, but ended up on the receiving end of a battering on Nuke as O PLANO took home the win to secure their RMR spot.

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paiN, MIBR, 00NATION qualify for Americas RMR

With just two qualifiers to go, the team list for the Americas RMR looks as follows: