Taiwan team Sad Story got a DQ from the IEM 2019 Katowice qualifiers because of an issue with the region they were playing in. According to ESL, who is organizing the tournament, the Taiwan team had to play in the Chinese qualifiers because that’s the geographically accurate region for them. The declaration came after a decisive 16-1 victory against the Japanese team Friendly Welcome.
CrazyFace, a player for team Sad Story, took to Facebook after the disqualification. According to him, the team has been playing in the SEA qualifiers in the IEM tournament for the past two years without any issue. An ESL community manager has officially made a statement on Reddit that they had used the UN list of countries in determining countries and regions, and any team from a country not mentioned on the list of countries should contact ESL staff for knowing the exact region they should sign up for.
Sad Story’s run in the IEM 2019 comes to an abrupt end, but the battle on Reddit is just heating up.