why isnt NA and CH at iem katowice?

Visa uncertainity problems for C9 and EDG

The intended invites were C9 and EDG. C9 decided not to go from risk of travel/visa (common presumed reason). Every other NA team was asked following and they all declined as well. As a result, G2 took their spot. As for EDG, they had apparent visa issues and dropped out last minute, thus being replaced with Hong Kong eSports on emergency. IEM hasn't really been a go-to event for China the entire season. It's unfortunate.

On a side note, SKT and SSG were also intended to be here instead of ROX and KDM. They both declined of their own choice and their replacements were those two by recent results (Worlds and IEM Gyeonggi respectively)

Mainly because no one cares about these small like tournaments.

1. Who cares for the prize pool especially for Korea who wins 1-2 mill each year anyways.

2. Gives teams more scouting pressure on those teams. Why play your hardest in a tournament that A. Means nothing and B. Will only show your strengths and weaknesses. I understand it does make teams learn more about different metas but at the same time unless you're LCK you follow and copy paste the better regions metas so after the tournament the teams are a little stronger but are massively behind the 8 ball as far as being scouted from the top regions(LCK).

3. Messes up your groove. How many times are this tournaments half way into a split only for certain teams to come back and look like complete shitt. TSM was apart of a IEM/MSI back in 2015 and they looked awful in that tournament and during Summer split. CLG came back after the MSI performances and Riot released patches that CLG was behind because of MSI so they too looked bad, same can be said about SKT they went back to Korea and got eliminated by KT I believe in the second round or so.
   Flash Wolves went back to LMS and had 40 min games over and over again.

I'm glad no NA team are participating in these tournaments that don't mean shitt and gives away their picks/team comps/style etc etc; that is why I hate it when NA scrims these top teams because A. It's gets leaked and B. The top regions are already better so giving them what you know will benefit them more so than learning a new trick or two from them.