The CS:GO tournament, named IEM Brazil, will take place from April 17 to 23, 2023, and will feature a prize pool of $250,000.

The tournament organizer made the announcement in a press release featured on their official portal, stating that the IEM will take the spot of the former IEM Spring tournament set down for April 17-23, 2023.

“We promised to return to Brazil in 2023, and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing,” ESL announced.

“IEM Brazil 2023 will take the spot of the previously announced IEM Spring tournament between the 17th – 23rd of April this year. The 16-team ESL Pro Tour Masters tournament will feature a $250,000 prize pool and an Intel?Grand Slam contribution awarded to the champions.”

Although it has been announced that the esports tournament will be held in Brazil, the exact location and venue have not yet been revealed by ESL. However, Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte has reported that the event will be held in Rio de Janeiro, the same city that hosted the successful IEM Rio Major.

Sixteen teams from around the world will compete at the IEM Brazil tournament, with 11 teams receiving direct invitations from ESL. The remaining five spots will be filled through regional qualifiers, which will be held in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. The first open qualifier for the event will take place on January 21 in Asia, with the European and South American qualifiers starting on January 26.

The regional qualifiers will determine which teams will advance to the closed qualifiers, which will then decide which teams will qualify for IEM Brazil. In Europe and North America, two teams from the open qualifiers will advance to the closed qualifiers, while in South America and Asia, four teams will move on. The closed qualifiers will take place in February, with the top two teams in Europe and one team each from North America, South America, and Asia qualifying for the main event.

IEM Brazil will be a significant event for the CS:GO esports community, as it will not only offer a substantial prize pool but will also be a part of the Intel Grand Slam, a competition that awards a $1,000,000 prize to the first team to win four out of 10 designated CS:GO tournaments.

Below is an outline of the event format and scheduled dates

Europe

First open qualifier: Jan. 27 to 28 (two teams progress to closed qualifiers)
Second open qualifier: Jan. 30 to 31 (two teams progress to closed qualifiers)
Closed qualifiers: Feb. 8 to 10 (two teams qualify for IEM Brazil)

North America

First open qualifier: Jan. 26 to 27 (one team progresses to closed qualifiers)
Second open qualifier: Feb. 11 to 12 (one team progresses to closed qualifiers)
Closed qualifiers: Feb. 15 to 16 (one team qualifies for IEM Brazil)

South America

First open qualifier: Jan. 26 to 27 (one team progresses to closed qualifiers)
Second open qualifier: Feb. 11 to 12 (two teams progress to closed qualifiers)
Closed qualifiers: Feb. 15 to 16 (one team qualifies for IEM Brazil)

Asia

First open qualifier: Jan. 21 to 22 (two teams progress to closed qualifiers)
Second open qualifier: Jan. 23 to 24 (two teams progress to closed qualifiers)
Closed qualifiers: Jan. 26 to 27 (one team qualifies for IEM Brazil)

Further details about IEM Brazil, such as the location and invited teams, will be announced at a later date by ESL. Going by the reaction from fans and enthusiasts after the announcement of the tournament, IEM Brazil promises to be a highly-anticipated event for fans of the popular first-person shooter, which will bring together some of the best teams in the world to compete in Brazil.

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PaiN Gaming took to their Twitter page to announce the launch of the facility. The franchise revealed that the facility is to be a home for their fans.

“Today we present our new home. She is in Vila Leopoldina, in Sao Paulo,” paiN Gaming announced.

“With more than 1,500 square meter, the complex was conceived and designed to be the home of our fans, one of the biggest in the world. The space has a 3m high screen equipped with a grandstand with space for up to 150 passionate paiNzetes.”

“A mobile store with exclusive products to serve the events and a museum where the trophies and medals of the titles of more than 12 years of history will be displayed and accessible.

“It has 7 training rooms, 4 stream rooms, administrative areas and support areas that coexist with spaces dedicated to you, the center of everything!

“The space will be open to visitors, press and content creators during specific periods later this year. An official schedule of events for 2023 is expected to be announced early next year. YES, COME THERE! @painfanfest BE READY.”

The facility is expected to house all franchises under the paiN Gaming banner, including their Valorant, League of Legends, Dota 2, Free Fire, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six, among others. It will also house the management staff and be used to host events and watch parties with the fans’ experiences at its core.

The Chief Executive Officer of paiN Gaming, Thomas Hamence, revealed that entry into the facility is entirely free and no fan is required to pay to access the venue. However, he shared that an on-site store will be available for the sale of products and merchandise.

“We never thought of charging tickets for fans to enter this facility, but we will count on a store on-site in which they will be able to buy products and merchandise,” Hamence said.

Hamence also revealed that the facility was estimated to be built over a 12-month span with a start date of 2020. The project was also expected to be erected under a budget of R$5 million (￡780.000). However, the plans were stretched and the cost increased due to the improvements that were made halfway through the project owing to the unprecedented occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The gaming office consists of rooms for the CEO, office desks for staff and employees, a dining hall and kitchen, seven training rooms, and streaming rooms. Also, the organization is currently discussing with BMW and telecom giant TIM as regards sponsorship, with an allotted visual branding of the agreed sponsor in their “decompression room.” The audio installation in the facility was provided by paiN Gaming’s audio sponsor, JBK.

The organization also revealed that it was poised to keep the sponsorship list very small due to the delay of the project in order to avoid damaging relationships. The facility has not yet been completed, as new improvements are in the works for the coming months, and completion is estimated to be around March 2023.

PaiN Gaming’s facility concept is similar to that of FURIA’s, which was announced in August and is located in Miami. Both organizations have revealed their commitments to host fans for free to watch their matches and network with players, influencers, and staff.

However, FURIA’s facility has a slight difference with the provision of a LAN house open to fans to rent. The facility will also be hosting marketing activations from their partners.

The only other organization with a similar venue in S?o Paulo is Red Canids Kalunga. The facility was opened in March and contains the same equipment and offers for fans.

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This news comes following the grand final of the 2022 IEM Rio Major, which took place on Sunday, November 13, with Outsiders emerging victorious. Although the country where the IEM Spring tournament will take place has been revealed, the exact location, time, and schedule have not been disclosed yet.

What is known, however, is that 16 of the best CS:GO teams compete against each other for a prize pool of US$250,000. Also, it is believed the event will take place in late April, when there are two free slots in the ESL Pro Tour schedule.

The tournaments in ESL have been slated to be held in the top cities around the world, such as Dallas, USA; Cologne, Germany; and Atlanta, USA. The very first event on the schedule, IEM Katowice 2023, will take place in Poland from January 31 to February 12.

The Senior Director of Game Ecosystems at ESL, Shaun Clark, said while announcing the 2023 ESL Pro Tour schedule: “Revealing our plans for the next year is always an important milestone for us! A clear goal each year is to give players, teams, talent, fans, and partners alike the opportunity to plan their year with us well in advance.

“It’s exciting to be looking forward to over 40+ tournaments around the globe, serving all tiers of the CS:GO competitive pyramid – from aspiring to professional. While we’ve planned out these tournaments, our work is not done, as we look to improve and continuously work on putting on amazing experiences for all of our global community.”

In order to create space for the new intakes, the North American esports organization will likely carry out the necessary roster changes before the VCT season kicks off in February next year. The agreement between both teams will reportedly be concluded soon, and the OpTic Gaming members will join the ranks of NRG.

After the expiration of their contract with OpTic, crashies, and Victor moved into unrestricted free agency. The players reportedly wanted to join the same team together rather than go their separate ways. The rest of the OpTic Gaming members reportedly stayed back in their team’s lineup.

Earlier on, Optic’s star player, Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker, was reportedly slated to join Cloud9 as part of the organization’s super team in preparation for the 2023 VCT. With the proposed NRG signings, Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen will be the only player in OpTic’s lineup yet to leave the coop.

NRG’s interest in OpTic’s lineup is not surprising due to the team’s position as one of the best squads in Valorant. The team notably finished in the top three across all the international events they participated in and were crowned the winners of the first Masters tournament this season. OpTic have also maintained the same roster with no changes for more than a year and a half since yay was signed on.

NRG, on their part, did not make any impressive plays in 2021, and the team’s only notable feat in 2022 was their qualification for the two stages of the North American Valorant Champions Tour Challengers League. The team were, however, unable to qualify for any international tournaments.

Looking at the performances of both teams this year, it is obvious that NRG did not get as far as OpTic in terms of success this year. Despite this, the NA team were selected to participate in the Valorant Americas franchised league, and OpTic’s request was denied. As a result, the team have made their coveted lineup available for transfer to other teams in the league.

According to Riot Games’ Roster Construction Rules, each partnered league team were to turn in a roster of not less than six players and not more than 10. As a result, it is not particularly certain if NRG’s players will be moved to substitutes on the team or entirely let go.

NRG were one of the ten biggest Valorant organizations like 100 Thieves and Sentinels to be selected for the Americas International Valorant League. Next year, the team will compete against top teams in the league, like Brazil’s MIBR, FURIA, and LOUD. North American squads such as Cloud9 and Evil Geniuses will also make an appearance.

The Kickoff tournament will begin Valorant’s 2023 season and will see all 30 teams from across the leagues compete. The three-week event will take place in S?o Paulo, Brazil, and will carry on from February and run through to early March.

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Outsiders, however, will carry on to the event’s quarter-finals owing to the win. Regardless of how far the squad goes from here, this is the team’s highest major event finish since the start of the year.

Unlike the team’s EPL Season 15 run when FURIA were placed 3–4th after reaching the semifinals, the Brazil team exited the ESL Pro League Season 16 in 9–12th place.

The Outsiders initially lost to FURIA on their map pick, Ancient, but the Russian team were able to bounce back and carry out a reverse sweep on Vertigo and Inferno. The last two maps saw Evgenii “?FL1T?” Lebedev give an outstanding performance. The player finished with a 1.43 rating on Vertigo and a 1.72 on Inferno.

On Ancient, Outsiders had a 6-2 early lead due to Dzhami “?Jame?” Ali’s efforts on the offense front, which involved focusing on one bomb site and then playing spread across the map. FURIA tried to close the gap in the last seven rounds of the map by securing five wins. The team ended half of the map with just one win behind their opponents. Yuri “?yuurih?” Santos helped his team with their comeback and, by the end of the first half, had recorded 12 kills.

FURIA kept up their momentum in the second half of Ancient and bagged five consecutive wins, while the Russian squad could not put up any adequate defense. The Outsiders eventually recovered towards the end of the game, but it was too late, and FURIA was already too far ahead.

The Brazilian team won the map with a 16-11 scoreline and started their 1-0 lead in the series. Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato, Rafael “saffee” Costa, and yuurih were all FURIA’s star players on the map and produced 64 combined kills.

FURIA’s map pick, Vertigo, came second, and Outsiders once again started the match in the lead with a 6-2 score. The team held on tight to their advantage this time and reached 11-4 shortly due to firm site control as well as their opponent’s economic struggles. Andrei “arT” Piovezan was the player who stood out among FURIA’s ranks and reached a 1.56 rating in the first half of the map.

The Brazilian team bagged three wins off the bat in the second half of the map and managed to reduce the gap. However, the Outsiders did not let up and won a few more rounds to reach the map point at 15-8. The map ended with a 16-10 win on Outsiders’ end and ushered in Inferno as the decider map.

Inferno saw FURIA get in the lead after winning the opening pistol round, but Outsiders squashed the thought before it fully sprouted by reaching an impressive 11-4 lead halfway into the map. Despite swapping sides, FURIA seemed unable to get their bearings, which their opponents took advantage of and reached the map and series point at 15-4. The Brazilian squad appeared to make another effort to get ahead, but the Outsiders were too far off, and the game was wrapped up at 16-6.

The only player on FURIA to end the series with a positive K/D was Yuurih. However, everyone on the team except David “n0rb3r7” Danielyan produced more frags than deaths compared to the Outsiders.

The Russian squad had FL1T and Dzhami “Jane” Ali as their best players. The gamers reached 62–46K/D and 48–34K/D, respectively.

FURIA’s position as the last Brazilian squad in the tournament made them match favorites, and fans hoped the squad’s 4-1 score in the group stage would signify a longer run in the tournament.

The winners of the series, Outsiders, will face off against Vitality, the Group A victors, on Friday in order to secure a spot in the ESL Pro League semi-finals.

According to the tournament organizer, the new tournament is to feature a new system and format and have all 30 squads in the international leagues, which include the Pacific, EMEA, and Americas, participate. The usual number of teams hosted per tournament is 16, making this competition the biggest in Valorant history.

The tournament organizer confirmed in a press release that the event would take place in S?o Paulo, Brazil, making it the first international Valorant tournament to be held in Latin America. The one-time event will last three weeks and take the place of the first split of the year. The split will resume its position in 2024, moving on.

The tournament will have the Valorant partnered teams and rosters face off against each other, with the winning team finishing as the champions of the off-season.

It will be the biggest international tournament hosted by Riot Games and will have a number of competitive stakes tied to the rest of the year. The event’s winner will be crowned in early March and will reportedly win an additional slot for their respective international league at the Masters later on in the year.

This means that if the winner emerges from Southeast Asia, the teams in the franchise’s international league, such as Paper Rex, Team Secret, and others, will bag an additional slot to join the 2023 Masters. After the event comes to a close, the first competitive split of 2023 will kick off with LAN competitions held weekly in all three leagues in late March or early April.

The international league matches will follow and reportedly occur in LAN environments in Berlin, California, South Korea, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Germany. The league will be divided into two splits for the last eight weeks of the regular season, until three league champions are crowned in May. The new international leagues will only include franchises selected to be part of Riot Game’s partnership program, indicating that several teams will be sidelined.

Riot, however, provided a way for squads to snag a spot in the various leagues via its Challengers Ascension tournaments. This will reportedly give more franchises leeway to stay in the competition.
The free agency period will end before the event starts and will give teams a chance to showcase the lineup they put together for the new three-league format next year. The league system is similar to that currently in use in League of Legends.

Whalen Rozelle, the Esports COO at Riot Games, said in a press release that the organization’s decision to “dream big” resulted from the inspiration provided by the Valorant community.

“The Valorant community’s passion inspired us to dream big and evolve the Valorant Champions Tour to meet the overwhelming demand we’re seeing in every corner of the world,” Rozelle said.
“In 2023, we’re taking everything we’ve learned, adding in new ideas, and forming partnerships that will help us realize our dreams for the next edition of the VCT.”

Despite the country having some of the best Valorant teams worldwide, with OpTic Gaming reaching the top three during the Valorant Champions 2022, the 2023 international kick-off tournament is Brazil’s first time hosting a Valorant international event.

In the past years, several Valorant international events have been organized in European countries, mainly so the teams involved could travel safely and efficiently with little or no COVID-19 restrictions.

The Valorant International Kickoff tournament will reportedly run simultaneously with the Challengers’ first split. The event will start in January 2023 and come to a close in March.

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The 24-years old Brazilian player is a former League of Legends player, who has displayed his skills and expertise in teams like Red Candid, Team Vikings and presently LOUD.

In 2020, he was ranked as the fifth best player in Brazil by VALORANT Zone and in 2021 he was ranked as the best player by VALORANT Zone and Premio eSports Brazil.

Sacy, along with his teammates in LOUD’s VALORANT roster, has made their way to Istanbul, Turkey, in order to compete in the VALORANT Champions tournament.

LOUD is the most important representative of the Brazil esports region because they qualified through the Brazil Circuit Points system. This was possible because they dominated the domestic scene and did well in the previous international tournaments.

LOUD was able to win in both of the Challengers’ Stages that were held during the Brazilian VCT 2022 and as a result, they earned a spot in the Masters competitions that were held in Reykjavik and Copenhagen.

They were unsuccessful in their attempt to win in the previous competition, as they were defeated by OpTic Gaming in the championship match. After suffering another defeat at the hands of the North American team, they finished 11th and 12th in Denmark.

However, they will have the chance to exact revenge on OpTic because they will be competing against each other in Group B of the VALORANT Champions tournament. BOOM Esports and ZETA DIVISION are the two other teams who compete against them, with ZETA DIVISION being the team that they face first in the group stage.

The Brazilian superteam, LOUD, will battle against OpTic today, which is an obvious strong contender in the VALORANT scene. LOUD is priced at $1.83 odds with Optic ($1.91 with esports betting sites) odds to defeat LOUD.

LOUD is confident following a string of successful performances on the international stage, that they will be able to compete for the title in Turkey.

Matheus “bzkA” Tarasconi, the coach of LOUD, recently gave interviews in which he stated that his team is coming into the tournament with the ambition to be champions and that the squad and Brazil are worthy of the world trophy.

“We will give our best to walk away with that title and the trophy,” bzkA said.

“I know that our team and Brazil deserve that world title.”

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The franchise took to its Twitter page to announce the renewal of its naming rights partnership with Vivo.

The tweet read:
“We renew, legion!

It was 8 years of union and great victories. So it is with great pleasure that we announce the renewal with our great partner, Vivo for another 2 years.

#GoVK”

Vivo Keyd’s Chief Executive Officer, Tiago Xisto, shared his excitement about the extended partnership. He went on to share some insights into the franchise’s future, consisting of the Metaverse and exploration of 5G services.

”We are very happy with the renewal because we believe that this moment is very interesting. We are going to explore 5G and all the fronts of Metaverse with the largest telecom company in Latin America,” Xisto said.

In line with the partnership, Vivo will continue to be Keyd’s primary partner for the next two years. GyroscopeWith the contract pegged to expire in 2024, the naming rights partnership with Vivo and Keyd will become the longest naming rights deal in the esports industry, with both parties having worked together for ten years. Both parties’ agreement was first initiated in 2014, and the most recent renewal of their union was done in 2020.

Vivo Keyd was dealt a harsh blow shortly after renewing the contract in 2020, as the franchise was not invited to partake in Riot Games’ Brazilian League of Legends Championship (CBLOL). Given the organization’s history in League of Legends, its failure to make it to the competition came as a shock to both the community and the franchise itself.

Keyd made a return to being a top esports franchise in 2021, having dominated the Brazilian Free Fire League (LBFF), while also conquering its regional VALORANT Challengers. The franchise also achieved notable success in Wild Rift and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

It was an all-around successful year as Keyd also attained a spot on the world stage in VALORANT Champions Berlin 2021 and the Mobile Legends M3 World Championship Singapore. The franchise was due to compete in the Free Fire World Series (FFWS) in November of 2021, but the event was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and was forced to be canceled.

Telef?nica Brasil, the Brazilian subsidiary of the Spanish group Telefónica, is the parent company of the Vivo brand. The telecom company’s partnership in the Brazilian esports scene extends past Keyd, as the brand has a partnership with the Brazil Game Show, one of the biggest Brazilian esports tournament organizers. Vivo has been sponsoring the organization since 2014 and only just renewed the partnership last year.

In addition to its naming rights partner Vivo, Keyd has sponsorship agreements with Motorola, the peripherals brand ELG, and the blockchain company Liqi. With Liqi handling its Vivo Keyd token offering to fans.
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