New Monte's LAN debut ends in last place

A missed chance against Vitality gave way to a one-sided loss to Falcons.

Monte have been eliminated from IEM Dallas following losses to Vitality and Falcons.

The event marked the team's first LAN appearance with newest signing Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk and stand-in Ali "⁠hAdji⁠" Haïnouss, and it turned out short-lived despite their promising 9-3 Terrorist half on Nuke in the best-of-one opener against Vitality.

Several clutch and late-round situations on the CT side cost Monte the win in that first match, and they went on to suffer a one-sided defeat at the hands of Falcons due to poor starts on the T side of Dust2 and the CT side of Nuke once again.

Date	Matches
IEM Dallas 2024
27/05/2024	Vitality Finished 16:12 Monte	Match
28/05/2024	Falcons Finished 2:0 Monte	Match

Speaking to James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks following Monte's elimination, Sergey "⁠lmbt⁠" Bezhanov admitted expectations weren't high for the team due to a lack of time to practice with their new additions.

"In general you can't expect anything from a not established team," the Ukrainian coach said. "We had seven days together, two new maps at the tournament and you have so many things to do. We played all the maps twice, so that's very rough."

Asked about the status of hAdji, who was only announced as a stand-in and not a permanent signing, lmbt praised the Frenchman for showing himself "very nicely" and went on to comment on his future.

"The market is very closed. The shuffle will be at the end of the season. We don't know how it will end up yet," he said cryptically, suggesting Monte are awaiting the right opportunity.

For the time being, Monte will return online for the rest of the season, where they still have the ESL Challenger playoffs and a BLAST Fall Showdown qualifier left to play.