EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card commences

EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card phase takes place today starting at 09:00 CEST. The four qualified teams – compLexity Gaming, No Diggity, Newbee and Fnatic will compete in a double elimination format bracket to determine the two teams that will advance into the main event tomorrow. Two teams will be eliminated from the competition. Team Secret, Team Liquid, OG, Evil Geniuses, Virtus.Pro, and Alliance – and two qualified ones will compete for a total prize-pool of $500,000 at Crocus City Hall in Moscow between May 10-15th.

Epicenter LAN kicks off tomorrow with teams battling it out for a prize pool of $500,000. pic.twitter.com/Kt9wWldpGw

— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) May 8, 2016

The four qualified teams will be competing in the EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card phase today. compLexity Gaming, No Diggity, Newbee and Fnatic will be competing for the opportunity to be one of two teams to advance into the main event and compete with the six directly invited teams – Team Secret, Team Liquid, OG, EG, VP and Alliance for the $500,000 prize pool.

EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card schedule

• 09:00 CEST Upper bracket semi finals – coL vs Newbee
• 09:00 CEST Upper bracket semi finals – NoDiggity vs Fnatic
• 13:00 CEST Upper bracket final – winner of UB 1 vs winner of UB 2
• 17:00 CEST Lower bracket match round 1 – loser of UB 1 vs loser of UB 2
• 21:00 CEST Lower bracket final – loser of UB finals vs winner of LB round 1

EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card format

The Wild Card gathers the four teams that won their respective regional qualifier.

• Four teams in a double-elimination bracket
• Matches are best-of-three format
• Top two teams advance to the Main Event
• Bottom two teams are eliminated

EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card teams

No Diggity – European Qualifier EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card team

Troels “syndereN” Nielsen © Adela Sznajder/ ESL

No Diggity made their debut performance in the EPICENTER Moscow EU qualifiers, with Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg who was unable to return to competitive gaming, due to school commitments. Instead, the team picked up Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann.

No Diggity defeated Power Rangers in the EPICENTER Moscow EU qualifier 3:1. The European mix survived out of almost 900 teams that began their quest to gain one of the EPICENTER Moscow EU qualifier spots. In the regional qualifiers they swept through both Vega Squadron and Team Spirit, and bested Power Rangers on two occasions.

No Diggity roster:

Adrian “Era” Kryeziu
Max “qojqva” Bröcker
Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann
Yazied “YapzOr” Jaradat
Troels “syndereN” Nielsen

Newbee- Chinese Qualifier EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card team

For the Spring season Meng “Xiao2lei” Lei and Zhang “le” Xuanhao moved to Newbee.Young, and Damien “kphoenii” Chok and Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi joined the team. Kaka had last played for EHOME and kphoenii is an Australian player who played for MVP.Phoenix and EHOME.King.

Newbee put an end to EHOME’s last hopes to participate in EPICENTER Moscow. The TI4 Championship team convincingly wiped out EHOME 3:0 in the EPICENTER Moscow Chinese qualifiers to secure a spot in the closed qualifiers. The Chinese stars had first swept through CDEC 2:0 then bested ViCi Gaming Reborn then LGD Gaming 2:1 before advancing to the Grand Finals.

Their incredible performance in the qualifiers was displayed most recently when they went through the entire Manila Major Chinese Qualifiers with an astounding 12:0 record, having not surrendered a single loss.

Newbee roster:

Chen “Hao” Zhihao
Zhang Mu Pan
Damien “kphoenii” Chok
Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi
Wong “ChuaN” Hock Chuan

compLexity Gaming – Americas Qualifiers EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card team

compLexity Gaming underwent roster changes in November 2015, as they welcomed Swedish brothers Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin and Linus “Limmp” Blomdin for the new season, reviving most of the HoN StayGreen roster from 2013-2014. Simon “Handsken” Haag also joined the mix. Since then they have had powerful and compelling victories and performances.

The North American/European mix overpowered Shazam 3:2 in the Americas Qualifiers for EPICENTER Moscow. compLexity wiped out EnemyGG and Shazam in their journey to the Grand Finals. With a default win coming in the upper bracket finals by Team Archon, which had disbanded, compLexity faced Shazam once again in the Grand Finals.

compLexity Gaming roster:

Kyle “swindlemelonzz” Freedman
Zakari “Zfreek” Freedman
Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin
Linus “Limmp” Blomdin
Simon “Handsken” Haag

Fnatic- SEA Qualifier EPICENTER Moscow Wild Card team

Fnatic

Showing up to the Shanghai Major in a completely different form, Fnatic started to take on a new life. In the last few months, they secured three LAN spots through victories in the regional qualifiers: ESL One Manila, EPICENTER Moscow and, most recently, ESL One Frankfurt 2016. They won BTS Series 4 SEA and followed up with a championship title at the SEA Kappa Invitational Season 1. The Malaysian team has been on a dominating streak lately, securing back-to-back victories, titles and LAN spots.

Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung had been on medical leave recently and his role was filled by the substitute player Adam Erwann Shah “343” bin Akhtar Hussein. When Mushi’s announcement was made of his return, it also revealed that 343 would be staying in the active roster and that Wai Pern “Net” Lim had chosen to leave the team in lieu of taking a substitute or coaching role.

The Malaysian squad swept through the SEA regional favorites MVP.Phoenix 3:0 in the EPICENTER Moscow SEA qualifiers. Fnatic first wiped out Mineski-X and then Mineski 2:0 before besting MVP.Phoenix the first time 2:1 in the upper bracket finals.

Fnatic roster:

Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung
Chong “Ohaiyo” Xin Khoo
Djardel “DJ” Mampusti
Zheng “Miduan” Yeik Nai
Adam Erwann Shah “343” bin Akhtar Hussein

EPICENTER Moscow

EPICENTER Moscow teams

• Team Secret
• Alliance
• Team Liquid
• OG
• Evil Geniuses
• Virtus.Pro
• TBD by WildCard phase
• TBD by WildCard phase

EPICENTER Moscow format

May 9th – Offline Qualifier

• Held at a prestigious hotel in Moscow.
• One team from each region will participate.
• Four teams will compete for the two spots available in the group stage.

May 10th-11th – Group Stage

• Eight teams will compete – six invited teams and two coming from the offline qualifiers.
• Top two teams from each group will advance into the Upper Brackets of the main event.
• Bottom two teams from each group will start the main event in the Lower Brackets.
• The group stages will be closed to the public and, just like the offline qualifier, they will be held at a prestigious hotel in Moscow.

May 12th-15th – Main Event

• All series will be best-of-three.
• The Grand Finals will be best-of-five, with not Upper Bracket advantage.
• The main event will take place at the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow. Tickets will go on sale in early April.

Crocus City Hall

Crocus City Hall is a multi-faceted venue, located in the 3rd pavilion of Crocus City in Moscow, Russia. It has a seating capacity of more than 7000. The arena is equipped with a state-of-the-art acoustic system.

Featured image courtesy of RuHub instagram