Invictus Gaming and NewBee withdraw from Global eSport Cup at the last moment

Three days before the Vilnius studio LAN playoffs Game Show is announcing two more teams dropping out from the tournament and the entire Chinese region cut from the format.

Unfortunately for Game Show - Global eSport Cup the two qualified Chinese teams withdrawing from the tournament with such short notice is quite a blow. The Vilnius, Lithuania studio LAN event is about to start on November 30th while the Dreamhack Moscow finals are scheduled for 5-6 December. All these are coming after Vici Gaming, EHOME and LGD Gaming withdrew as well during the qualifier stages.

Contacted by GosuGamers, Game Show official statement about what will happen with the two slots for the Chinese region said the following:

We regret to lose the teams. For the Vilnius studio LAN we drop China completely and cut the format down to 6 teams. We wanted to invite DK under their new organization, "EGB" (famous for LoL in China) and another team but Newbee and IG dropped so LATE that it’s impossible for us to get new visas even though we have the support of the Foreign Ministry here in Lithuania.”

They also mentioned that IG and NewBee will be fined by ACE with RMB 20,000, a bit more than $3000.

With no official announcement from ACE about this, we‘ve contacted the Chinese Union who confirmed that the two teams will be financially penalized but the announcement will come after Game Show is releasing their statement.

Game Show has also offered us the motivations given by the withdrawing teams. We’ve tried to contact the teams to confirm their statement but unfortunately only NewBee replied.

NewBee statement for GosuGamers:

We are really sorry that we won't join the Game Show competition. Because of the Middle East and Europe security issue we decided not to come. We want to thank for the support from our fans and media. Your support is the power for our improvement.”

A much more interesting story is at the core of Invictus Gaming’s absence. It is well known that they’ve missed the first Dota 2 Major Championship due to passport issues of Su 'super' Peng. Now IG is invoking a “certain” player, without giving names, who is unwilling to participate at the GeC.

Bellow is the letter that IG sent to the Game Show representatives:

“Hi, to whom this may concern at Gameshow. I confirm that IG cannot participate at the tournament and we apologize for the last minute notice. As an eSports organization we really wanted to participate in this tournament, for this we even forfeited participation for Starladder-I-League. But an individual player refused to participate. After our attempt to persuade him for we've tried actively to contact standins, but due to time constraints, many intended standins we contacted were unable to make the trip. We've also tried other measures to recover the situation but everything we've tried failed.

The organization is very ashamed and displeased with this issue. As for the player, we will consult with ACE to hold an investigation, and for future disobedient players we will consider banning the player from official matches and removing them from the roster. The organization will also pay a fine accordingly. For the tournament organizers, we deeply apologize as we recognize your effort in organizing this tournament. If there is anything we can do to remedy the matter, our organization will cooperate to the fullest. After this incident, we will try our best to improve our communications with players to prevent similar situations from happening again.”