The invited teams list includes CDC4 and i33 runners-up TheLastResort as well as CDC4 winner team fnatic. Nation-wise Germany is leading as they have four teams, including the SK Gaming CoD4 team, followed by Czech Republic, Finland and United Kingdom with three teams each. The I33 winner dignitas and TEK9 are the notable absentees.

The invited teams are spared from playing the qualifier round that the remaining 256 are forced to play in order to get a spot in the actual tournament. After the qualification, there will be only 160 teams competing and they will be spread into 32 groups with five teams in each. The group winner will go directly to the double elimination playoffs while third and fourth are playing a qualification match to play another match against the second placed team. The playoffs, as well as all other matches, will be played with the best-of-three method.

Before announcing the invites, the admins had a poll about how many SMGs should be used in the tournament and after 542 votes given, 64% of them said there will be three SMGs.

The invited teams
ESC Gaming Linemax
Lowlandlions
DEFEATERS
eSuba.HAL3000
inteRaction
Highbot
KomaCrew e.V. steelseries
nGize
SK-Gaming
x6tence.AMD
Bangin' it eurostyle!
multigaming less
regnum
Team CoolerMaster
Epsilon eSports
insidiae
k1ck eSports
H2k-gaming
ancients
team impact
DCC Gaming
Serious Gaming
Oslo Lions
Fear Factory X-Fi
UF Gaming
K1ck eSports Club.pt
fnatic
L2W Gaming.CyberSnipa
Intense DIGITRON Gaming
EXABYTE
Four Kings
The Last Resort

The qualifiers are scheduled to be released at some point today.