Yesterday, the MAD Lions team surprisingly announced that veteran player Hunden from the Danish CS scene would be stepping down from competition. Although this was a mutual decision between both parties, with Hunden sharing that he felt exhausted after a continuous period of play and wanted to transition into a management position within the team, it happened at the worst possible time: just two days before the closed qualifier for the European Minor and less than a week before FLASHPOINT – the tournament system with a total prize pool of $1,000,000.
And the worst-case scenario unfolded this morning when ESL announced that MAD Lions had officially withdrawn from the closed qualifier for the European Minor due to insufficient participating members.
The team replacing MAD Lions will be Complexity, a name that has drawn considerable attention recently after defeating big names like Astralis and Vitality to secure a spot at the BLAST Premier Final this June.
In the three previous open qualifiers, the members of Complexity were unable to overcome weaker opponents. In the first qualifier, they were defeated by BIG in the semifinals, and in the second qualifier, they unexpectedly lost to PACT, a relatively unknown opponent. Complexity did not participate in the third qualifier due to commitments in the BLAST Premier Spring Series, and in the final qualifier, they once again fell short at the gates of heaven when they lost to SMASH 1-2 in the semifinals.
This information came as a “gift” from the heavens for the Complexity members, and many spectators even proposed a “conspiracy theory” that this was a “slot sale” deal for MAD Lions, given that Complexity is known to be a financially strong organization.
Immediately upon learning this news, the members of Complexity had to hurriedly pack their bags to move to the gaming house in Europe and prepare for the competition.
“It’s insane, I just woke up this morning to find out that we will be competing in the closed qualifier for the European Minor, which starts tomorrow. The team’s flight will take off in 4 hours” – RUSH shared the good news on Twitter.
The closed qualifier for the European Minor will take place this weekend with 16 participating teams, including strong names like Fnatic, OG, Dignitas, Heroic, NiP,… The top 8 teams will continue their journey in the European Minor and hope to qualify for the Major ESL One Rio, the first Major-level tournament of 2020.
These matches will be live-commentated on the 500Bros YouTube channel, so be sure to follow and tune in!