A few days before the ESL One New York tournament kicks off, Alliance announced a stand-in for the tournament as Chessie will not be able to travel and play with the team because of a back injury. He will be replaced by Fnatic's H4nn1. Shortly after, Team Tinker's Bulba announced that he will travel to New York as well to help out Na'Vi.US, as well as former Team Liquid player wayto
Starting on October 9th, top teams from around the world will meet up in New York City to battle it out in the ESL One tournament, held in the theater at Madison Square Garden.
Yesterday, one of the European qualified teams, Alliance, has announced that they will be using a stand-in. Rasmus 'Chessie' Blomdin will not be able to participate as he is currently suffering a back injury. In his absence, Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers will travel with the Swedes to New York. The Fnatic player is likely to pick up the mid position left open by Chessie. Technically, Blomdin himself is officially still a stand-in, as Alliance has yet to officially announce the acquisition of both Chessie and MiSeRy.
Back home in Gothenburg for a day. Our standin arrived as well! @KaiH4nn1 will be replacing @ChessieDota for #ESLOne NYC! @theAllianceGG
— Kelly Ong Xiao Wei (@kellymilkies) 6. Oktober 2014
Alliance is not the only team to note a stand-in though. Team Tinker's Sam 'Bulba' Sosale also announced that he will be part of the ESL One tournament, acting as a stand-in for Na'Vi.US. The North American squad has not been playing with their official full roster for quite some time, missing out on both Braxton 'Brax' Paulson and Theeban '1437' Siva. Na'Vi.US used a multitude of stand-ins in the past weeks, most notably former Team Liquid player Peter 'waytosexy' Nguyen and former Fnatic stand-in Steve 'Xcalibur' Ye. In fact, Nguyen will complete the line-up for the North-Americans as announced last night.
Going to ESL NY as standin for Navi.USA !
— Sam (@BuLbaDotA) 6. Oktober 2014
Going to ESL NY as standin for Navi.USA !
— Peter Nguyen (@waytopeter) October 7, 2014