BIG replace Chaos in IEM Global Challenge

Winners of the two last big North American tournaments of 2020 won't participate in the European season finale.

Chaos will not take part in the $500,000 IEM Global Challenge, scheduled for December 15-20, as two of their players are unable to travel to Europe due to health reasons.

Replacing Anthony "⁠vanity⁠" Malaspina's team at the event will be BIG, currently ranked fifth in the world, after narrowly missing out on the invite at the end of November.

tiziaN and co. will slot in for the North American team

Sitting in the 18th spot of the world rankings, Chaos have won the last two events they participated in — IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 North America and DreamHack Fall 2020 North America —, and hold a spot at the IEM Katowice 2021 play-in.

However, after the Chaos organization confirmed their plans to exit CS:GO on Thursday and members of the team announcing that they might head different directions if no organization supports them, it is uncertain whether this five-man lineup will be seen playing together again.

BIG coming in as a replacement will give the German side a chance to make a final hurrah in 2020. Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz's squad climbed to the #1 spot in July, having won DreamHack Masters Spring and cs_summit 6, but have not been able to replicate the same form after the break, most recently finishing 5-6th in Flashpoint 2.

ESL added that they wanted to invite a North American team as a replacement, but neither Triumph nor TeamOne were able to make it, while Evil Geniuses pulled out of the tournament in November.

The IEM Global Challenge team list now looks as follows:

Vitality
Astralis
Complexity
BIG

Natus Vincere
HEROIC
Liquid
FURIA