dAT pull out of Katowice qualifier

The Ukrainian team were due to take on trebuHAH in the eighth round of the Lower Bracket, to which they were sent following a surprising 16-19 defeat against LANDODGERS in the Round of 16, but had to forfeit their match against the Belarussian side.

That happened because dAT had at the same time a StarSeries contest against Na`Vi and ESL did not allow them to delay the match against trebuHAH for an hour. 

With dAT stuck between a rock and a hard place as neither match could be rescheduled, they prioritised StarSeries, but still the outcome has left Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy's men fuming, since they consider ESL is to blame for the situation after initially announcing wrong dates for the qualifier.

"When the ESL CIS qualifiers were originally announced for the 28th, we asked SLTV admin Panda to move our match for the week so it did not conflict with ESL," Gorodenskiy told HLTV.org.

"We were discussing the new date of the Na'Vi match when Panda was told by [ESL admin] crtmN that the ESL CIS Qualifier dates were actually the 29th-30th. It was also posted on the ESL page. 

"So we scheduled the Na'Vi game for the 28th, and we instead moved our other SLTV match vs x6tence from the 29th to the 27th so it would not conflict with the new dates.  We began our preparation for the Na'Vi game on the 28th and were in the middle of practice when the dates on the ESL page were changed again (three hours before the Qualifiers started).  Panda approached crtmN for an explanation, and all he said was "Sorry, there must have been a miscommunication.

"SLTV granted us a last minute (within 5 hours of the match) exception which gave us an extension until the 29th to play the match. Na`Vi agreed to play the next day, but could only play at 19:00. We then went to ESL to try to find a solution to misunderstanding created by crtmN, and we were simply told we could not change the schedule in the middle of a bracket.  We told ESL we would only have to delay the match one hour, and still they refused. We then offered multiple other solutions, including giving up all our progress and playing in a new qualifier in a different region (EU qualifier #2) and they simply stopped replying.

"We were forced to give up a spot we earned because of a miscommunication caused by ESL which was no way our doing.  We are already playing at a disadvantage because, as most of you know, S1mple is not allowed to compete in ESL.  We are playing without our starting line-up and we still managed to make it to day 2 of the CIS qualifier.  Despite our disadvantage, we were still successful, but are being denied the chance to continue because of ESL's mistake, not anything we have done."

Contacted by HLTV.org, ESL admitted that there was some miscommunication with SLTV at first, but stressed that the correct dates were announced by ESL CIS on Tuesday. 

With CIS and Polish teams not being able to take part in the last European online qualifier (due to having their own regional and national qualifiers), dAT are bound to miss the offline qualifier for ESL One Katowice, unless they get one of the last four invites.

"We are not upset the misunderstanding happened," Gorodenskiy added. "What we do not understand is why we are being punished for someone else’s mistake.  Specifically, the tournament organizer's mistake, who is also refusing to offer us any solution or remedy for something they caused.

"We have been flexible and offered other solutions, and nothing has worked. ESL offered us no solution and no remedy for a mistake they made. We have even gone so far as to offer to give up all the progress we made, and start from scratch and play in the second European qualifier.

"We just want what everyone else wants, the chance to prove we belong in Katowice."