How EG and FURIA got the Local Hero invites

The invitations for the early June event in Texas were released today, with many questioning the inclusion of Evil Geniuses due to their recent struggles. With the Seattle-based organization failing to make it to the RMR and going winless at ESL Pro League, it looked like the squad were going to without another big event before the summer player break.

However, the community was surprised to see Evil Geniuses get a "Local Hero" invite for IEM Dallas, seeing as their performance has been below-par in 2023. Several commenters pointed out that in the ESL World Rankings, the Blueprint organization was actually ranked below fellow North American-based teams MIBR, ATK, and Nouns.

At the time that the invites were sent out on February 13th, 2023, Nouns was ranked #26 while Evil Geniuses were ranked #22. However, ATK was ranked #21 and MIBR was ranked #20. Because the language of the Local Hero definition refers to "nationality-based", MIBR would not be eligible as they are a Brazilian team.

For the case of ATK, it appears that they might have a leg to stand on concerning their involvement as they actually had three North American players at the time, despite a seemingly international roster. Within the team, Michael "Swisher" Schmid and Jonathan "djay" Dallal are American and Canadian, respectively. Saad "Pluto" Siraj, while listed as Pakistani, actually holds a Canadian passport, making the team a majority North American roster.

According to ATK's Jonathan "b0denmaster" Bodenmalm, Evil Geniuses received the invite as they had more American players on their roster at the time compared to ATK.

According to the ESL website, the Local Hero invite is used as follows:

*Local Hero slot will be given to one of the best-performing local (nationality-based) teams and will be filled before ESL World Ranking Slots.

With Evil Geniuses getting the invite, there is also confusion as to why FURIA would have received the "Local Hero" invite for IEM Rio 2023. ESL informed Dust2.us that the organizer fills the Partner slots first, then Local Hero invite, then the ESL WR slots. However for IEM Rio 2023, fnatic was chosen as a Partner team invite while FURIA were given the Local Hero spot, despite FURIA being ranked higher than fnatic at the time.

The exact method of Partner slots being distributed is relatively unclear to the general public, with many assuming ESL choosing invites based on the team ranking at the time of the invites. While we know that teams like Liquid have decided against attending events due to their busy international schedule, it hasn't been exactly clear why some teams are chosen as partner teams for events while the same partner teams attend events due to their World Ranking.

In examining the Louvre Agreement, there appears to be a "draft selection" by Partner Teams for the annual circuit events. The draft selection occurs twice a year for teams that are ranked 20th or higher in the World Ranking. Such a selection would help explain why FaZe, one of the top teams in the world, earned a partner slot for IEM Rio, but have claimed a berth to IEM Dallas thanks to their ESL World Ranking.

Assuming that the divide and draft selection for events occurs during each player break, equally dividing the year, it's possible to assume that FURIA decided to pick attending Dallas and were given a "Local Hero" slot as the best performing Brazilian team available. The Local Hero spot has been outlined and declared by ESL way ahead of each event invite, so it was not created as an excuse to invite FURIA, Evil Geniuses, or other teams to their events.

If this is how the process actually went, it would have also been a risky move for FURIA to believe that ESL would not throw a curveball into their plans by choosing another Brazilian team as the Local Hero for IEM Rio and forcing the world-hopping Brazilians to play in the North or South American qualifiers. This would explain how FURIA was able to maneuver entry into both events as the best Brazilian team on the international stage.

Dust2.us was unable to find out the order of the draft, so we are unable to know for sure how other teams picked for each event. This also means that it is entirely possible FURIA might not have even chosen Dallas willingly, as all other Partner Teams could have elected to play Rio, forcing FURIA to choose Dallas in the draft selection. Regardless, the answer is still the same as FURIA is going to IEM Dallas as a Partner Team and will attend IEM Rio as the Local Hero, thanks to them being the best performing Brazilian team.

As for FURIA, they are fully focused on ESL Pro League as their next match is against Imperial on Wednesday.