Complexity, IHC among invites to ESL Challenger Melbourne

25-2-2023 20:02

Grayhound will be the local representative at the Australian tournament in April.

ESL has announced the four teams who have received direct invites to compete at ESL Challenger Melbourne, which is slated to take place from April 28-30 with a $100,000 prize pool and spot in ESL Pro League Season 18 on offer.

Complexity, IHC, and Bad News Eagles have gotten invitations to the event based on their ESL World Ranking placement, while Grayhound have been awarded the "Local Hero" invite as the Australian representatives.

Complexity are the highest-ranked team invited to compete in Australia

Four additional teams will earn spots at the event through the regional qualifiers: one each from Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania. paiN, the 2022 reigning champions, will need to fight through the North American qualifier if they want to defend their title, while at least one additional Oceanic team should join Grayhound to play on home turf.

The qualifier dates can be found below:

Europe open qualifier - February 25-26 - bracket
Europe closed qualifier - March 8-10

North America open qualifier - March 19-20 - sign-up
North America closed qualifier - March 27-28

Oceania open qualifier - March 15-16 - sign-up
Oceania closed qualifier - March 18-19

Asia open qualifier - February 27-28 - sign-up
Asia closed qualifier - March 2-3

The tournament itself will utilize two, four-team GSL groups to determine who will advance to the playoffs. The opening and winners' matches will be best-of-one, while elimination and decider matches play out as best-of-threes.

The team list for the event looks as follows:

Complexity

Grayhound

EU Qualifier

OCE Qualifier

IHC

Bad News Eagles

NA Qualifier

Asia Qualifier

why no Movistar Riders

2023-02-25 20:03

12 replies

2023-02-25 20:04

3 replies

where's EG?

2023-02-25 20:05

2 replies

EG wouldn't even win the qualifier

2023-02-25 20:14

1 reply

Wouldnt even win 1 match in qualifier and bombed out last place.

2023-02-26 11:33

2023-02-25 20:13

2023-02-25 20:15

2023-02-25 20:56

thats like saying why no eg xD

2023-02-26 02:09

Annihilation: "i am happy but is only EG"

2023-02-26 09:39

Annhilated

2023-02-26 11:37

nice

2023-02-25 20:02

nice, hard work paying off for IHC

Let’s go IHC! Finally eu tournaments starting to invite them. I hope Rare Atoms and Lunar Vision will be invited too to some of t2-1 tourneys

2023-02-25 20:09

For real. I still think Rare Atom has the most potential out of all the Asian teams. I know Advent and Kaze are a little up there, but they bring the experience for the 3 young guns to shine.

2023-02-25 22:28

rare atom/vici got really fucked over by covid, they only played against tyloo in finals for like a year. Would've been fun to see them outside their region once they surpassed tyloo

2023-02-26 12:33

its in melbourne, not eu tournament lol

2023-02-25 22:42

IHC > COMPLEX

2023-02-26 02:15

Melbourne EU events Choose one

2023-02-26 07:49

6 replies

I knew that Melbourne is not in eu, I meant there are some eu/na teams that we used to see in eu events. Feel it? Most of tourneys with IHC, Rare Atoms and Lunars - events with chinese, korean, mongolian teams and that's it

2023-02-26 09:41

5 replies

Lunar Vision ☠️☠️☠️

2023-02-26 10:43

4 replies

They r good too bro

2023-02-26 11:36

They r Lynn bro

2023-02-26 12:20

If u want

2023-02-26 15:56

hltv.org/team/8840/lynn-vision ok ty

2023-02-26 16:01

True

2023-02-26 15:16

ez for IHC asian godfathers

reasonable invites

What's the point of a local hero invite if they already have an Oceania qualifier? Why not just designate 2 slots to that qualifier :/

2023-02-25 20:20

What's the point of EU qualifier if they already have BNE? Why not just designate 2 slots to that qualifier :/ What's the point of Asia qualifier if they already have IHC? Why not just designate 2 slots to that qualifier :/ What's the point of NA qualifier if they already have Complexity? Why not just designate 2 slots to that qualifier :/

2023-02-25 20:23

cuz EU teams are not ass?

2023-02-25 22:20

bruh why bne. those are really annoying. literally anybody else but not them!

2023-02-25 22:32

Grayound will probably be in Europe during qualifiers

2023-02-25 20:24

gud

2023-02-25 20:29

Col or BNE win

2023-02-25 20:30

wow this is a boring invite list

2023-02-25 20:42

11 replies

Movistar, Imperial, Fluxo, Falcons, ENCE, one of those 4 should’ve be invited for viewership reasons

2023-02-25 21:15

10 replies

or they could've invited teams that are actually good.

2023-02-25 21:39

Complexity is very good.

2023-02-25 22:08

complexity and ihc are fine but kinda boring.

2023-02-25 22:14

lol they are honestly 2 of the more exciting teams to watch right now, would you rather Outsiders were invited? This isn't an IEM event, so you aren't going to get FaZe, G2 level teams travelling to Australia if it doesn't count towards the grand slam, Complexity is a pretty good team to come, they don't really have any incentive to participate as they are already a permanent partner org with EPL, so I guess they see it as a nice trip. But the top 5 teams are far too exhausted to fly 20+ hours for a fairly meaningless tournament. Unsure why ESL aren't going ahead with IEM Melbourne like they said in 2019 would be replacing IEM Sydney, as that attracted top teams because it counted towards a grand slam.

2023-02-26 01:58

Yeah your right, just wish they would host a big event here again.

2023-02-26 17:11

It's based on ESL's ranking. So ENCE must have declined an invite, and the other teams you listed weren't ranked high enough.

2023-02-25 23:49

why not EG?

2023-02-26 00:29

I’ve a feeling they about to disband soon

2023-02-26 00:44

EG.White?

2023-02-26 00:53

If the regular roster disbands , I think the blueprint projects gets in jeopardy too

2023-02-26 01:13

No BR team = No viewership

2023-02-25 21:14

19 replies

We don't want your views

2023-02-25 21:16

8 replies

2023-02-25 21:36

2023-02-25 22:05

We? You speak on behalf of ESL now?

2023-02-26 00:04

Lol ur br team declined the invite....

2023-02-26 00:39

How do you know?

2023-02-26 00:45

Mibr's couch said it.

2023-02-26 01:31

Didnt knew a couch could speak lol Im joking, thanks for the info Would’ve been a great event for MIBR to attend

2023-02-26 08:19

yeah, would've been fun to see another CoL vs. MIBR matchup for me to tear my hair out over

2023-02-26 12:35

Views don't mean anything if it's coming from a third world country who can't afford to buy anything being advertised.

2023-02-25 22:11

2023-02-25 22:18

Lmao that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on this forum. Brazil is a top 15 in gaming market in the world. So yeah, gaming companies care way more about Brazil than about Denmark

2023-02-26 00:18

Ok, yeah I am sure steelseries sell a tonne of arctis nova pro wireless headsets in the favela lol.

2023-02-26 01:59

I won’t even waist my time debating with someone so small-minded and prejudiced as you. Have a nice day, buddy

2023-02-26 02:03

Holy shit you destroyed him

2023-02-26 08:17

Not the smartest huh?

2023-02-26 11:42

I do wish they'd invite mibr. Or Furia

2023-02-25 22:41

They must have both declined the invite, since they would both be ranked high enough to get one over some of the teams that did.

2023-02-25 23:56

theres still a chance im praying imperial some how goes through the NA qualifier. Didnt get to meet fallen last time need him to go through now

2023-02-26 11:18

No eternal fire? Really?

2023-02-25 21:18

yea wouldve loved for xfl0ud to come to melbourne but even if they were high enough in the ranking i dont think they wouldve accepeted considering they didnt even try going through the open qualifiers

2023-02-26 10:52

yea they didn't wanna go, they couldve gotten an invite to the Qualifier

2023-02-26 11:17

Lets go BNE

2023-02-25 21:30

OZI OZI OZI! POG! Ca't wait for the australian crowd xd IS DICK STACEY COMING? XD Don't know the rules but can G2 qualify for this? Would be amazing for jks!

2023-02-25 22:30

It's not worth G2s time to attend, they are already a permanent partner, and they already travel too much. If this was an IEM event they might go, but they're also skipping IEM Rio due to travel so I doubt they'd travel to Australia.

2023-02-26 08:29

Would love to see a 12 team event with: 3 invited teams 2 Australian invited teams 2 Asian invited teams 1 Europe qualifier 1 North American qualifier 1 South American qualifier 1 Australian qualifier 1 Asian qualifier We need to give some of the regions a legitimate chance to grow by showing, even if it's just 1 event, they will have multiple teams being given a chance to qualify for it. Look at how the NBA infiltrated both Europe and Africa. Those regions were pretty butt, outside of a few select guys, until the next generation came around. But one of the reasons the next generation was able to develop more was because of the money and chances they now had compared to the players before them. If you love both CS and Valorant equally and your goal is to compete you might make a decision based off your regions structure within the scene.

2023-02-25 22:38

There is no val scene in oce, riot took it behind the shed as soon as franchising was announced. It is virtually impossible for an oce team to make it to any riot competition

2023-02-26 00:30

2023-02-26 12:36

love to see it lets go complexity!

2023-02-26 03:07

you know it's not gonna be anything interesting when the invited team from EU is BNE

2023-02-26 03:14

Who do you think they should invite?Maybe FTW?kekw

2023-02-26 12:03

#90

2023-02-26 21:09

U probably didnt watch EF-BNE? The most intense bo3 in many months but sure they can invite teams like SAW instead xD

2023-02-26 12:15

if they cant even get a big name EU team like NiP, fnatic, MOUZ, OG or even BIG or ENCE, then you know its not gonna be anything interesting SAW arent even close to be a stable Tier 2 team, but i knew people would say shit like this anways..