paiN replace Aurora at BLAST Open London*

The South American team will play the online stage in place of Aurora.

BLAST has announced that paiN will take the place of Aurora at the upcoming BLAST Open London.

Aurora have had a rough start to the second half of the year as Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş could not make it to their post-break debut at IEM Cologne and the team instead played with Yasin "⁠xfl0ud⁠" Koç as a stand-in.

The Turkish squad's 9-12th place exit is now followed by a forfeit of their spot at BLAST Open London, which will kick off with an online stage on August 27 before the LAN finals on September 5-7.

Before that, however, Aurora are slated to compete at BLAST Bounty, starting with the online stage on on August 5-10, and then at EWC, which kicks off on August 20 and runs for five days.

Four BLAST Open London teams are yet to be decided in the Rising qualifiers in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia.

The team list is now:

Vitality
MOUZ
The MongolZ
Spirit
FaZe
FURIA
EU Qualifier
Asia Qualifier

Natus Vincere
paiN
GamerLegion
G2
Virtus.pro
HEROIC
NA Qualifier
SA Qualifier

No reason for the team change was given in the succint announcement on X. HLTV has reached out to the TO for comment regarding the event's roster update.

15:55 Update: BLAST will not comment on the change.

16:25 Update: Aurora posted on X that due to the tight schedule they have decided not to participate at BLAST Open London.