HellRaisers to attend EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier; AVANGAR advance to group stage

After MOUZ announced that they would be withdrawing from EPICENTER, the tournament organizer revealed that they will be replaced with a team from the CIS Qualifier, HellRaisers.

In the announcement post, EPICENTER revealed that MOUZ stated that "conflict within the team" was the reason they withdrew from the $300,000 tournament. With little time left to find a new team and for them to get visas for Russia, EPICENTER decided to invite HellRaisers to fill in the gap.

HellRaisers will have a chance to bounce back from a poor showing in Kiev next week in Moscow

EPICENTER explained that HellRaisers will be competing in the Wild Card qualifier on October 22 since they "were defeated in the CIS qualifier and are not eligible for entering the group stage based on their ranking". Instead, AVANGAR, the winner of the EPICENTER CIS Qualifier, will be moved up to the group stage directly.

As of now, the EPICENTER team list looks as follows:

Natus Vincere
FaZe
AVANGAR
Wild Card #1 Liquid
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Invite
Wild Card #2

The five teams that qualified for the Wild Card Qualifier will claim the remaining three spots at the tournament. The last invite will be handed to the team from that group (excluding HellRaisers) that has the highest HLTV.org ranking on October 19th, while the remaining four teams will battle for the last two spots in the double-elimination Wild Card LAN qualifier on October 22nd.

The following five teams earned a spot in the Wild Card qualifier:

ENCE
Virtus.pro
Swole Patrol HellRaisers
5POWER Swole Patrol #40 Braxton 'swag' PierceRyan 'freakazoid' AbadirEdgar 'MarKE' MaldonadoJordan 'Zellsis' MontemurroAustin 'Cooper' Abadir Liquid #3 Nick 'nitr0' CannellaKeith 'NAF' MarkovicJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEpitacio 'TACO' de MeloRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken MOUZ #4 Tomáš 'oskar' ŠťastnýJanusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiChris 'chrisJ' de JongMiikka 'suNny' KemppiRobin 'ropz' Kool AVANGAR #26 Bektiyar 'fitch' BahytovTimur 'buster' TulepovAidyn 'KrizzeN' TurlybekovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali Virtus.pro #30 Filip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiMichał 'MICHU' MüllerPiotr 'morelz' TaterkaMichał 'snatchie' Rudzki FaZe #6 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenOlof 'olofmeister' KajbjerLadislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsNikola 'NiKo' KovačHåvard 'rain' Nygaard Ninjas in Pyjamas #9 Patrik 'f0rest' LindbergChristopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundDennis 'dennis' EdmanJonas 'Lekr0' OlofssonFredrik 'REZ' Sterner 5POWER #68 Gan-Erdene 'dobu' BatboldBat-Enkh 'kabal' BatbayarZhiHai 'QKA' FuPeng 'xiaosaGe' SongWei 'shuadapai' Wang ENCE #18 Aleksi 'allu' JalliJani 'Aerial' JussilaSami 'xseveN' LaasanenAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenJere 'sergej' Salo HellRaisers #11 Kirill 'ANGE1' KarasiowVladyslav 'bondik' NechyporchukÖzgür 'woxic' EkerBence 'DeadFox' BöröczIssa 'ISSAA' Murad Natus Vincere #2 Ioann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoEgor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' Sharipov