picture courtesy of eslgaming
The Kiev Major pioneers the idea of having two separate competitions for the two American continents, North and South fighting for the first time in different brackets.
Despite Valve’s efforts to help the scene to become more stable and competitive by implementing the SA qualifiers, a lot of teams saw this as an opportunity to mix and match how they pleased outside the shuffle period. This resulted in only two SA and three NA teams being eligible for an invite in the regional stage, which also leads to a more relaxed open qualifiers environment compared to any other regions. For South America there are a total of eight spots up for grabs in open qualifiers while North America has four spots available. But, even so, both regions delivered big surprises.
At the end of the first NA open, the casters stack, Vegetables Esports Club actually won their final match against Wheel Whreck While Whistling, but conceded their spot in the regionals to fulfill their casting commitments for the Kiev Major.
With Wheel Whreck While Whistling getting such a nice present from the casters stack, the NA regional qualifiers will have the first ever female player competing for a spot to a Valve event. Wheel’s support Marielle 'Layla' Louise will have all eyes on her starting February 10, when the regionals are set to kick off.
The other side of the bracket was a totally different story. CompLexity Gaming crushed all their opponents to reach the finals where they met and steamrolled over The Big Egos.
A bigger surprise was in the South American bracket, where neither Infamous nor Not Today managed to reach top four of the first open qualifiers session. The two organization are regarded as main contenders in their region, but both suffered roster changes a month ago, which now might come to haunt them even more than they would have anticipated. The four SA squads advancing into the SA regionals are the Peruvians from Union Gaming, Team Unknown, Mad Kings and the Argentinian squad Vultur Gaming.
Infamous and Not Today will have a second chance at grabbing a regional qualifier spot starting today with the second batch of opens. Another four spots are waiting to be filled.
NA and SA regional qualifiers team lineup:
| North Amerrica | South America |
 NP (invited) |  SG e-sports (invited) |
 Onyx (invited) | Midas Club Elite (invited) |
| Team Freedom (invited) |  Union Gaming (open qualifiers #1) |
| compLexity Gaming (open qualifiers #1) | Team Unknown (open qualifiers #!) |
| Wheel Whreck While Whistling (open qualifiers #1) | Mad Kings |
| TBD (NA champions qualifiers) |  Vultur Gaming |
| TBD (open qualifiers #2) | TBD (open qualifiers #2) |
| TBD (open qualifiers #2) | TBD (open qualifiers #2) |
| TBD (open qualifiers #2) | |
| TBD (open qualifiers #2) |
