Swole Patrol and Bad News Bears round out the IEM Sydney North America Closed qualifier after placing top two in the second open qualifier.

A total of 96 teams participated in the second leg of open qualifiers in North America for IEM Sydney, where teams such as Singularity, Spacestation, Denial, and Rogue dropped in the best-of-one stages.

Swole Patrol was the first team to make their way through the inital best-of-one games after taking down the likes of The Fundamentals and MASSIVEimpact. Braxton "⁠swag⁠" Pierce and his men were then matched against the Brazilians' INTZ, who knocked out Singularity to earn their place in the best-of-three decider.

The series kicked off on Dust2, where a highly-contested battle ensued as Swole Patrol were able to edge their opponents 16-14. Moving to Mirage, Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe & co. were faced with yet another 5-10 deficit heading into the second half, where they were unable to force the decider as Edgar "⁠MarKE⁠" Maldonado shined with a 1.77 rating to send his team to the next stage.

Swole Patrol	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Braxton 'swag' Pierceswag	49 - 27	+22	85.9	1.43
Edgar 'MarKE' MaldonadoMarKE	48 - 38	+10	101.0	1.37
Victor 'food' Wongfood	45 - 32	+13	89.7	1.25
Sam 's0m' Ohs0m	40 - 36	+4	71.8	1.12
Anthony 'vanity' Malaspinavanity	30 - 35	-5	56.5	0.90

INTZ	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Gustavo 'yel' Knittelyel	38 - 36	+2	78.0	1.11
Vito 'kNgV-' GiuseppekNgV-	48 - 43	+5	83.1	1.11
Alexandre 'xand' Zizixand	31 - 43	-12	65.9	0.85
Lucas 'destiny' Bullodestiny	25 - 43	-18	56.7	0.75
Marcelo 'chelo' Cespedeschelo	26 - 47	-21	64.2	0.73

On the other side of the bracket, Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney's Bad News Bears turned heads as they powered through by defeating Rogue to go head to head against TeamOne, who knocked out South Africans Denial 16-2 to reach the final decider of the tournament.

The second deciding series of the tournament saw ptr and his men bounce back in the second halves of Train and Mirage to reach map point after slow starts. However, TeamOne would not go down without a fight as Bruno "⁠BIT⁠" Fukuda Lima & co. rallied back across both maps to force overtime, but, in the end, Bad News Bears prevailed, 19-17 and 19-16, booking their place in the closed qualifier.

TeamOne	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Alencar 'trk' Rossatotrk	60 - 51	+9	88.8	1.22
Victor 'iDk' TorracaiDk	51 - 55	-4	85.9	1.08
Pedro 'Maluk3' CamposMaluk3	44 - 49	-5	61.6	0.98
Bruno 'BIT' Fukuda LimaBIT	41 - 48	-7	66.7	0.94
Nicolas 'NikoM' MiozziNikoM	36 - 51	-15	62.6	0.79

Bad News Bears	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Mitch 'mitch' Semagomitch	63 - 41	+22	91.6	1.40
Peter 'ptr' Gurneyptr	51 - 41	+10	65.8	1.20
Tyson 'TenZ' NgoTenZ	60 - 53	+7	92.9	1.18
Josh 'shinobi' Abastadoshinobi	41 - 47	-6	61.8	0.90
Jeff 'RZU' NgoRZU	37 - 50	-13	67.1	0.86

The finalized IEM Sydney North America Closed Qualifier team list looks as follows:

The IEM Sydney North America Closed Qualifier is set to take place on February 6-8, with the eight teams battling through a double-elimination bracket for the one available spot at IEM Sydney.