GamerLegion’s volt to miss ESL Challenger Atlanta due to visa issues

8-12-2023 17:19

The European team will have to do without the Romanian player in the United States.

volt is unable to travel to the US due to visa issues

GamerLegion player Sebastian "⁠volt⁠" Maloș will miss ESL Challenger Atlanta next week due to visa issues, his organization has announced. Replacing him at the event will be Andreas "⁠aNdu⁠" Maasing, the headline player of GamerLegion’s recently created academy team.

The Estonian player, 18, raised a few eyebrows during his time on sYnck, with whom he won Gamebox Invitational 2023 in Herning, Denmark, back in May. He has yet to debut for GL Academy, which was announced on November 28.

volt’s unavailability comes as a blow for GamerLegion, who were looking to end the year on a high note after disappointing showings at ESL Challenger Jönköping, Elisa Masters Espoo and BetBoom Dacha. The team placed 5th-6th at the first two tournaments before crashing out of the event in Dubai in last place following 0-2 defeats to Cloud9 and BetBoom.

Snax: "It’s a matter of time before we fix every problem"

GamerLegion are the second team attending ESL Challenger Atlanta to have been hit with visa issues. Earlier this week, Argentinian side BESTIA announced that they would travel to the United States with two stand-ins after Luciano "⁠luchov⁠" Herrera and Tomas "⁠tomaszin⁠" Corna were denied visas.

ESL Challenger Atlanta will take place between December 15 and 17 at the Georgia World Congress Center, with $100,000 on offer. GamerLegion have been placed in Group A, alongside Apeks, Complexity, and The MongolZ.

With aNdu filling in for volt, GamerLegion’s roster for the event looks as follows:

Isak "⁠isak⁠" Fahlén
Frederik "⁠acoR⁠" Gyldstrand
Nicolas "⁠Keoz⁠" Dgus
Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski
Andreas "⁠aNdu⁠" Maasing (stand-in)

Ashley "⁠ash⁠" Battye (coach)

Remove them and invite Spirit. Stop inviting this crap team GL to tournaments

2023-12-08 17:21

6 replies

cry

2023-12-08 17:41

big w bro

2023-12-08 18:05

like Spirit will pass through visa system without problem xd

2023-12-08 18:20

ofc he's a donk fan

2023-12-08 18:22

faxxxx

2023-12-08 18:38

The only invited team is CoL

2023-12-08 21:53

sad

2023-12-08 17:20

1 reply

Can we please stop making theese events in America, So meny CiS Teams and Baltik Teams have Visa issues Every time!.... If you wanna win tournaments my Americano friends. Your Visa issue buff must hit the tier 1 teams, not tier 2

2023-12-08 21:39

Classic US tournament PWN

wait what, how did volt of all people get hit with the visa issues

4 replies

he is second nephew of andrew tate (non blood related)

2023-12-08 17:34

Romanians get shafted all the time when it comes to US visas

2023-12-08 18:16

2 replies

but doesn't he have uk citizenship?

2023-12-08 19:21

You're right, I forgot about that. Guess it's bad luck then, or maybe a mistake with one of the documents

2023-12-08 19:24

wtf has been going on with all these visa issues lately

11 replies

It's expected if a tournament is being held in a country with one of the strictest visa applications in the world. As evident by BESTIA losing their best players to them and now volt. Mongolz even had trouble (once again) and nearly almost had to miss out but apparently managed to get in contact with the US embassy in Mongolia after mongolian fans scrambled to reach out to them and bring attention to the problem when they found out.

8 replies

bruh they dont have enough time their visa is 100% not on time so its denied mongolz is not going atlanta !!

2023-12-08 17:35

it is still unclear whether they go or wont, they've been scheduled to meet with the embassy on tuesday, if they get approved it is still unclear for them to get flight tickets especially since there is no direct flight from mongolia to us

2023-12-08 17:56

I see. At the very least they managed to secure a meeting. Would still suck if they still can't manage to make it in the end even after all of that :/

2023-12-08 17:57

5 replies

that would suck especially katowice invite is dependent on this tournament. rn lv, mongolz, tyloo are very close in esl ranking. winner of EPL challanger practically secure the katowice play in spot but if mongolz attend atlanta they would have upper hand in the ranking

yeah I knew about that for a while. Mongolz basically has to attend Atlanta no matter what unless they want to lose that Katowice spot to LVG or TYLOO (probably the former tbh) Based on that, I’m going to assume they’re going to try to make it no matter what and may succeed in the end. Only drawback is getting flights immediately and jetlag.

they can definitely still make it in the end (which I think they can) but they would have to start scrambling as soon as they get what they need. and have to deal with jetlag.

2023-12-08 18:30

I am not worried about jetlag if they managed to go atlanta since they only need 1 win to secure katowice play in spot. Most their players are teenagers so they must have lot of energy despite jetlag also this GL squad is handicapped so i am positive they could get a win from atlanta

2023-12-08 18:44

then all they have to worry about is trying to book flights immediately after getting what they need, if in time and do get them that is which I think they can. Will have to do their damnest since this is basically a do or die situation for one other tournament they can do before the RMRs. Trying to book flights is the real problem, since the the fastest they can go that flies directly to Atlanta is supposed to be around 18 hours long.

2023-12-08 18:58

"lately"??? Since 1.5 CPL's this BULLSHIT happens

2023-12-08 18:18

a lil bit before and right after covid things had been pretty smooth with US events

they have a GL academy? first time i see it

Bro read the article lol, it was announced 28 November

2023-12-09 09:13

isak carry

Insane

2023-12-08 17:22

Good for GL Volt is not even that good I feel like this kid might be better than him :))

2023-12-08 17:26

14 replies

Yes, because the other players haven been doing stellar hltv.org/stats/teams/players/9928/gamerl..

2023-12-08 18:19

13 replies

He is literally playing star roles :)

2023-12-08 18:23

12 replies

Yeah and as we all know, CS is a 1v5 game. How dare he not post up a 1.4 rating while his entire team is underperforming, including acoR who has a 1.01 rating with the most expensive gun in the game

2023-12-08 18:25

Honestly i dont really care about him or GL at all I just know that he is simply not guy Sure he might become a solid player in tier2,3 but not tier1

2023-12-08 18:33

10 replies

GL is not a T1 team. It was a solid T2/3 team that always did well in CCT-type events. Their Paris Major run was impressive, but they lost their 2 most important players since then. volt also came from ITB, another T2/3 team. Who even said he has to perform at a T1 level?

2023-12-08 18:37

9 replies

Then stop defending a guy who cant take this team to the next level They were top6 at some point,its his responsibility to help this team get back to that point Idc how bad im is rn but he was averaging 1.20,1.30 with same core while playing the same roles

m8, them being #6 at one point was entirely because of siuhy and iM. siuhy being the biggest catalyst for that happening and at a lesser extent iM who basically performed like prime NiKo during Paris due to siuhy's essentially godlike micromanaging.

2023-12-08 21:59

7 replies

I totally aware of it its just that guy was bringing excuses for volt‘s poor performance Im not saying they should be top5 or top10 its just that these guy are not even good enough to be top20 Ik snax is not a great igl but cant you just hit your shots?:)

2023-12-08 22:10

>Their Paris Major run was impressive, but they lost their 2 most important players since then. Reading that hard for you? How can you compare volt's performance in GL to iM's when iM played in a different system, under a different IGL (and for a much longer period)? Again, you are ignoring that literally everyone in that team is doing bad rn, including the AWPer. I am not blaming it solely on Snax, it could just be growing pains until they adjust to the new system, but the point is that it makes no sense to single out anyone considering the state they're in

2023-12-08 23:29

Your statement is logical but it doesn’t change the fact that volt is not good enough for the tier1 And nothing could convince me that he is. You could look at players and say if they will succeed or not just by their looks and aura

2023-12-09 01:54

You are arguing against a point that was never made. I was judging volt's performance strictly within the context of the team he is, which is not a T1 team. I do believe he is better than what he's currently showing and also think once GL stabilize he will look better along with his teammates. Yes, he has a star role, but with very few exceptions, if the entire team is doing bad, the star player will as well

2023-12-09 15:21

3 replies

Thats I believe they should give that opportunity to someone else who could help this team elevate their level

2023-12-09 16:45

It seems you are unable to grasp the concept that CS is a team-based game, or you're just arguing for the sake of it

2023-12-09 16:53

Wouldn’t change the fact that he is not guy No matter how bad your teammates are, real players would show their value. Simple

2023-12-09 19:35

GL shoud withdraw and ef replace them

andu allstars legend

2023-12-08 17:28

thank god

2023-12-08 17:30

Oh crap, they can't catch a break. Their last chance for redemption in that 4 tournament marathon and they can't use best player...

2023-12-08 17:42

rip bot

2023-12-08 17:43

fun fact mongolz is also denied ...

2023-12-08 17:49

Why is it always the highest-rated player of a team that gets visa issues at U.S. events. I swear you never see a negative rating player have visa issues.

2023-12-08 17:50

worst standin ever?

2023-12-08 17:53

really? The guy with UK citizenship can't get a US visa??? Maybe I don't understand something, but this looks weird to me

2023-12-08 18:01

everyone though they kick him at first?

It's not an American event without visa issues

Good ol' US events Almost on the level of Australia

2023-12-08 18:04

Amazing, host more US events pls

2023-12-08 18:14

OMG OMG OMG

Classic

isn't volt acutally british like mantuu and they just choose to represent their families country? I thought that the british visa was good

mantuu just lives there. volt has actual citizenship I believe.

2023-12-08 18:35

Andu the snake

lessgo andu I hope he does good the estonian ropz

2023-12-08 23:46

This is an inconvenience of course but firepower wise its a clear upgrade (and one I think the team needs long term....).

2023-12-08 23:57

> Strict VISA regulations > open borders for illegals Murica in a nutshell

2023-12-09 00:24

Hard-working people don't get in because of the stupidly complicated visa process, turns out if you were detained once 20 years ago for having like 50 grams of weed on you, then you're banned from entering the US for life. However, if you just get in through the south border you can live freely in the US, nobody's gonna bat an eye, and after enough time you can just apply for citizenship anyway. It's fucking ludicrous.

2023-12-09 11:43