ESL One Birmingham 2026: All qualified and invited teams

ESL One Birmingham returns in 2026, after a single year break from the tournament. This year, the event takes place in March, with 16 teams fighting for their share of the prize pool, as well ass the ESL Pro Tour (EPT) Points on offer. Although the tournament is still two months away, nearly every qualified and invited team is now locked in. Only China’s qualifier remains, which comes our way at the end of January.

With that in mind, we recap the recent qualifiers and look at the contenders for ESL One Birmingham 2026.

Liquid crash out of qualifiers

One of the biggest stories to come through the ESL One Birmingham qualifiers is that of Team Liquid. Having never missed an ESL One event since 2019, the team crashed out after losses to both Virtus.pro and MOUZ. With four slots available to Western Europe, the other surprise was the Nigma Galaxy finally getting themselves into a 2026 event, having already missed out on DreamLeague Season 28 and BLAST Slam VI.

Read more: From mainstay to missing: Liquid fails to qualify for ESL for first time in seven years

From the Eastern Europe qualifier, there were no major surprises, with both Aurora Gaming and BetBoom Team taking the two slots available. Although Aurora faced a slight predicament early on, losing to Inner Circle, they managed to steady themselves and make the lower bracket run possible.

Two big surprises came from Southeast Asia, as REKONIX were the team to, once again, claim a spot in a tournament. Having already beaten Team Nemesis at the BLAST Slam VI qualifiers, REKONIX, this time, took down Execration as they reached the ESL One Birmingham 2026 event. Nemesis, unfortunately, were unable to make it through open qualifier, leaving them high and dry.

GamerLegion still find themselves dominating the North America qualifiers, but it was South America where most of the attention turned to. With Perú Rejects taking on HEROIC once more in the qualifier match, all eyes were focused on the region. Much like the previous qualifier, the Rejects dominated, sending HEROIC down into the dust.

The list of teams qualified to ESL One Birmingham 2026 is:

• Team Yandex (Direct Invite)
• Team Spirit (Direct Invite)
• PARIVISION (Direct Invite)
• Xtreme Gaming (Direct Invite)
• OG (Direct Invite)
• Tundra Esports (Direct Invite)
• Team Falcons (WEU Qualifier)
• Virtus.pro (WEU Qualifier)
• MOUZ (WEU Qualifier)
• Nigma Galaxy (WEU Qualifier)
• BetBoom Team (EEU Qualifier)
• Aurora Gaming (EEU Qualifier)
• REKONIX (SEA Qualifier)
• GamerLegion (NA Qualifier)
• Perú Rejects (SA Qualifier)
• TBD (ESL One Challenger China)

All that remains now is ESL China Challenger, which will bring forth the final team for ESL One Birmingham 2026. The event is set to take place from January 30th-1st February, with the winning team qualifying to both this and DreamLeague Season 28.