Team selection for Riyadh Masters: why Team Secret was invited, not Thunder Awaken

Author: Hawk Live LLC

Last updated: 05:47, 22.12.2025

The organizers of Riyadh Masters 2023 have detailed the system of invites and the process of selecting teams that will take part in the tournament.

Following the announcement of the Riyadh Masters 2023 Invited Team List, fans have had questions regarding some of the invited teams and outrage that other deserving teams have not been invited.

Twelve teams start their Riyadh Masters campaign in Group Stage 1, otherwise known as the Play-Ins. The first team, qualified via the MENA qualifier, is Quest Esports.

The remaining eleven slots are awarded using our Regional EPT Rankings, which are only used to rank teams within their own region. Each region is automatically assigned one of these slots, to be awarded to their highest ranked team that isn't already qualified.

According to the organizer's rules, the following teams become participants in the tournament:

Quest Esports (qualified via the MENA qualifier)
9Pandas (the highest-ranked team in EAST EUROPE that is not yet qualified)
beastcoast (the highest-ranked team in South America that is not yet qualified)
Execration (the highest-ranked team in South east asia that is not yet qualified)
Team Aster (the highest-ranked team in CHINA that is not yet qualified)
Team Liquid (the highest-ranked team in WEST EUROPE that is not yet qualified)
TSM (the highest-ranked team in North America that is not yet qualified)

The final five slots are allocated according to the ELO rating, but some teams from each region are ignored. This number is calculated by subtracting 1 from the number of teams that this region has already qualified for Riyadh Masters.

As a result, only the #1 teams from CN, NA, SA, and SEA are ignored, while the top 3 teams are ignored in WEU and top 2 ignored in EEU. With those ignored, the region with the highest ELO receives the first slot, and another team is ignored from that region when determining the next slot.

This process repeats until all slots are allocated - in this case, three to WEU, one to CN, and one to EEU. These are awarded to the next highest-ranked teams, in the Regional EPT Rankings, that aren't already qualified: OG, Entity, and Team Secret in WEU, Xtreme Gaming in CN, and Virtus.pro in EEU.

So, the full list of tournament participants looks like this: