With The Kiev Major quickly approaching, information regarding a region lock for the Open Qualifiers has come to light.
Amongst these changes, Milos Nedelljkovic, from FACEIT, gave us a breakdown of the region locking feature which will be implemented for these Open Qualifiers. This region locking will be to prevent teams playing outside their home regions – making it a lot more interesting and fair in the greater scheme of things.
Milos also made it clear that if a team was based in a certain area but hosted a majority of foreign players, the 3/5 rule would not disrupt them from participation in that regions qualifier. The region lock comes in the wake of The Boston Major American Qualifier where several European and CIS teams invaded and made their way through these, even though they were obviously from outside North America. But, that aside, the Open Qualifiers are sure to be extremely eventful, with teams contesting for a chance to shine under the light of the year's second major.
Also, within the South America region, we'll be seeing 8 teams advancing regionally.
The Kiev Major’s Open Qualifiers are set to begin on the 6th of March, and more details surrounding the closed qualifiers and invites are not yet known to the public.