It has been announced that a PUBG Invitational will be held at Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) World Championship Katowice on February 24-25 at IEM EXPO! 16 teams, from all around the world, will be invited to duke it out for a total prize pool of $50,000.

Nine of the total 16 competing teams will receive direct invites to the event, includes three North American teams, three European teams, and three Asian teams. The seven remaining teams will have to participate in a number of regional qualifiers, which commences with 512 budding squads.

The online qualifiers will kick off on ESL Play from January 20-21. There will be three North American slots, three European slots, and a single slot for South America. See what Michał Blicharz, VP Pro Gaming at ESL, had to say about the exciting news below.

"The IEM World Championship Katowice 2017 was the world's largest esports event in history, and with PUBG's competitive debut at IEM Oakland, we are thrilled to feature it again at such a renowned IEM event. Previously adding PUBG to the agenda brought a lot of excitement to the arena and we feel that it will be a great addition to the IEM Expo."

Online Qualifier Schedule

January 20/21 and 28/29 on the IEM Katowice 2018 PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS Qualifier site

For Europe and North America

Three rounds of Open Qualifier:

• Round 1. - 512 teams, 32 groups, three matches, top 4 of each group go through to Round 2
• Round 2. - 128 teams, 8 groups, three matches, top 4 of each group go through to Round 3
• Round 3. - 32 teams, 2 groups, five matches, the top 4 teams qualify for closed Qualifier

One round of Closed Qualifier:

• 16 teams (8 direct invites and 8 qualified teams from the open qualifier) each region
• Closed Qualifier - 16 teams, 1 group, five matches, top 3 will qualify for IEM Katowice

For South America

Four rounds of Open Qualifier:

• Round 1. - 512 teams, 32 groups, three matches, top 4 of each group go through to Round 2
• Round 2. - 128 teams, 8 groups, three matches, top 4 of each group go through to Round 3
• Round 3. - 32 teams, 2 groups, five matches, the top 8 of each group go through to Round 4
• Round 4, - 16 teams, 1 group, five matches, the winner team will qualify for IEM Katowice

Main Tournament Schedule

24-25th of February from IEM Katowice

• 10 rounds will be played throughout the course of the weekend.
• The first 5 rounds will be played on Saturday 24th of February
• The last 5 rounds will be played on Sunday 25th of February

Ticketing & Qualifier Enrollment

• Tickets to the IEM EXPO and IEM Katowice World Championship are available through Ticketmaster!
• To Enroll in the Open Qualifiers for your region, visit ESL PLAY.