Team Liquid players defeat Karmine Corp in RLCS Winter Invitational

After a month of cold sweat and chilling battles, the RLCS Winter regionals are finally over for half of the RLCS regions. The Winter Invitational cemented the final invites for the upcoming San Diego Winter Major that's happening soon. Here's a look at the winners, a recap of the events, and the rankings for the RLCS Winter Invitational for Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, and the Sub-Saharan Africa regions.

Team Liquid won the RLCS Winter Invitational with an intense last battle against the back-to-back champion Karmine Corp. They met in the last grand final in the Winter Cup, but failed to bring down Karmine Corp.

This time, however, Team Liquid players showed off their pure determination and skills and brought down Karmine Corp on the Champions Field in a nail-biting series of seven games. This secured Team Liquid's second regional win, making them look strong and powerful ahead of the San Diego Winter Major.

With the end of the Winter regionals, the RLCS EU Winter Ranking is finalized. The top five teams will represent the European region in the San Diego Winter Major. They are Karmine Corp, Team Liquid, Oxygen Esports, and Team Vitality. G1, German Amigos, and Quadrant faced tiebreakers where G1 grabbed the last invite to the Winter Major.

The new team won their first regional qualifier since their debut before the start of the RLCS Winter season. Ninjas in Pyjamas ended up at the 5th-8th place for the first two Winter regionals. In the Winter Invitational grand final, they went against Team Secret who is looking to secure another win. The intense seven-game series ended with an easy victory for Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Unfortunately for Ninjas in Pyjamas, the SAM region only has two slots for the Winter Major and it is already grabbed by Team Secret and KRÜ Esports.

The Gaimin Gladiators finally won one of the Winter qualifiers after getting second place in two previous grand finals. The APAC Winter Invitational saw a neck-to-neck grand final between Elevate and Gaimin Gladiators who were both tied for first place in the RLCS Winter Ranking. The match ended on the Champions Field with seven intense matches that led to Gaimin Gladiators' victory.

With only one APAC slot in the Winter Major, Gaimin Gladiators will head for their second RLCS major to represent the APAC region.

No one expected the SSA superstar Limitless to go down. However, the unthinkable happened when Limitless was beaten by Nixuh in the SSA Winter Invitational. Nixuh was always in the top four in the RLCS 2022-23 season. The team was always a step behind, but consistently improved themselves. They went to the grand final last Winter Cup against Limitless where they gave a good fight before Limitless took the crown.

This time, Nixuh was determined as they took down the SSA giant and became the first ever to beat Limitless in the grand finals with seven insane games and a game seven that went overtime.

SkillSteal shared his feelings on beating Limitless and winning their first regional.

"I don't think anyone in the region expected us to be here. I do not expect to do a [winner's] interview," he said. "Limitless is an insane team and to beat them, obviously, it leaves you speechless. Like what are you supposed to say? You just play way better than them? They're a bad team now? There's nothing that you can say about Limitless that would give you permission to say that cause Limitless is just insane. I don't know, I'm as speechless as anyone else is right now."

The SSA region did not receive any slots for any upcoming Major, so we will be looking at the overall SSA RLCS Ranking. As of now, Nixuh has overtaken Orlando Pirates Exdee in second place. Meanwhile, Limitless is on top of the ranking.

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