OpTic have decided to pull out of the North American qualifier for IEM Katowice, ESL has announced.
The European team had been invited to compete in the closed stages of the North American qualifier after competing in this region in the last edition of the ESL Pro League.
The news will certainly fuel rumours surrounding the future of the team, who failed to qualify for the ELEAGUE Major Boston's New Challengers Stage after finishing in third place at the European Minor. Adam "friberg" Friberg's side have been out of action since the ECS Season 4 Finals, where they went out 5th-6th.
Following OpTic's withdrawal, ESL has decided to decrease the number of participating teams in the closed qualifier from nine to eight. The six invited teams will be joined by the winners of two open qualifiers, the first of which came to a close last weekend, with Splyce coming out on top.
Below you can find the current team list for the qualifier:
 Renegades |  Liquid |
 100 Thieves | NRG |
| Luminosity | Misfits |
 Splyce | Qualifier #2 |
.@OpTicGaming have decided to pull out of the #IEM Katowice 2018 NA Qualifier and therefore the number of qualifier participants has decreased from 9 to 8.
— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) January 26, 2018
Splyce #49 
Kory 'SEMPHIS' FriesenDaniel 'roca' GustaferriDavid 'DAVEY' StaffordTaylor 'Drone' Johnson 
Liquid #14 Lucas 'steel' LopesNick 'nitr0' CannellaJosh 'jdm64' MarzanoJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken 
OpTic #13 
Adam 'friberg' Friberg
Aleksi 'allu' Jalli
Oscar 'mixwell' Cañellas
Kevin 'HS' Tarn
Emil 'Magisk' Reif 
100 Thieves #31 Bruno 'BIT' Fukuda LimaLincoln 'fnx' LauHenrique 'HEN1' TelesLucas 'LUCAS1' Teles 
Renegades #17 Justin 'jks' SavageAaron 'AZR' WardKeith 'NAF' MarkovicKarlo 'USTILO' PivacNoah 'Nifty' Francis 
NRG #23 Damian 'daps' SteeleJacob 'FugLy' MedinaVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' Arnold
Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov Adam 'friberg' Friberg 
Age: 26 Team: OpTic Rating 1.0: 1.01 Maps played: 1223 KPR: 0.68 DPR: 0.67 
Misfits #15 Sean 'seang@res' GaresShahzeb 'ShahZaM' Khan
François 'amanek' DelaunayDavid 'devoduvek' Dobrosavljevic 
Luminosity #26 Vinicios 'PKL' CoelhoGustavo 'SHOOWTiME' GonçalvesGabriel 'NEKIZ' SchenatoGustavo 'yel' KnittelMarcelo 'chelo' Cespedes (责任编辑：spectrum 2 case)
