Optic has decided to withdraw from the IEM Katowice Closed qualifier. The Friberg led team secured a 5th-6th position in the ECS Season 4 finals. They failed to secure a spot in the Eleague Boston Challengers stage. This decision has fuelled rumors of the future of the roster as their principal aim of making it to the Legends stage of the Major failed miserably.
With this decision, IEM has decided to make the closed qualifier slots down to eight from the previous nine.
.@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
Source : HLTV.org