The Regional Major Ranking series for the IEM Rio CS:GO <\/em>Major 2022 was one of the most memorable and surprising since the new Major qualification system was introduced just a couple of years ago.<\/p>
Two titans of the game in Astralis and G2 fell short of qualifying for the Major altogether, meaning that some of CS:GO’s<\/em> biggest stars such as NiKo, m0NESY, gla1ve, Xyp9x, and blameF will have to watch the Rio Major from the crowd or from home. The result was devastating to some of these names: NiKo tweeted<\/a> that he’d “never felt this empty and this much pain.” Astralis were forced to watch former mainstay dupreeh set a new individual record<\/a> for Major appearances.<\/p>
But for every team that stumbles and falls short, another appears to take its place, and the team that delivered the dagger to G2’s Major hopes<\/a> did so after less than a couple of months spent together. Even after their upset, GamerLegion held their nerve, kept their composure, and reached their first Major.<\/p>