Team Empire will compete against Power Rangers to begin the qualifier but Team Tinker will be replaced by Balkan Bears Corleone following the teams decision to withdraw due to time constraints.
The first invitational qualifier for the Esportal League is set to begin today with Cloud 9, Secret Team, Virtus Pro, Alliance, Team Empire, VP Polar, Power Rangers and now Balkan Bears Corleone all competing for a place in the LAN finals and the first prize of €7000. The winners will join Hellraisers in the Stockholm-based finals beginning next year. Team Empire will open the single elimination qualifier with their match against Power Rangers with both teams hoping to reach the semi-finals stage. This is the only scheduled match for the day with two more games scheduled for December 11th, including Balkan Bears Corleone's first match against Virtus Pro Polar.
Team Tinker were originally invited to compete against Virtus Pro Polar, but we are informed they have withdrawn due to time constraints. This is the second qualifier they have exited in the last week after they were unable to play in the European qualifiers for i-League Season 2. Esportal League reported this on their website:
'Unfortunately, Team Tinker have been forced to withdraw from the tournament due to time constraints. As a result of this we have called in Balkan Bears Corleone who impressed a lot of people in the previous Esportal Open qualifier and we are excited to see how they fare against the elite teams of Europe in this next qualifier.'
Balkan Bears Corleone, featuring players from five different countries, were able to reach the semi-finals of the open qualifier which had a massive 256 teams competing. They ended up putting up a fight against the qualifier winners Hellraisers, but fell short to lose their game by two games to one. Also scheduled over the next few days, Cloud 9 will be looking to get back to winning form following their loss in the Summit 2 finals. The team will compete against Alliance for a spot in the semi-finals against either Team Empire or Power Rangers. On December 12th, Secret Team take on Virtus Pro for their spot in the second semi-finals. The tournament will be casted by Beyond the Summit and begins later today at 17:30 CET.
