Eliminations at the ALGS Championship have officially started, with the bottom 20 teams of the group stage fighting for their tournament lives in what could be the final games of their 2023 season. But one Apex Legends team will be playing with one of the biggest disadvantages.
Aurora has decided to play as a duo for the rest of the event, playing without their emergency substitute Jose “Uxako” Llosa, despite playing together in the group stage for the first two days of the event.
Prior to the Championship, Aurora confirmed two of its starting players, Kiryl “9impulse” Kostsiu and Lev “taskmast33r” Grigoriev, had not received their visas for the event and would have to be replaced. The ALGS rulebook allowed the signing of two emergency substitute players due to these outside circumstances, and Aurora picked up Uxako and Keenan “Tax” Mackey to represent them at the Championship.
Fortunately, 9impulse received his visa and made it to Birmingham before the Championship started. He was allowed to rejoin the starting lineup, which now consisted of himself, ojrein, and Uxako.
But the team failed to find their stride and struggled in the group stage, finishing 33rd out of 40 and dropping down to losers bracket round one, where they faced elimination and the end of their 2023 season. In response, Aurora decided to make a substitution, wanting to play with Tax instead of Uxako, with ojrein informing Uxako the morning before their bracket stage games—or, at least, they attempted to make a substitution.
According to the ALGS Rulebook, Aurora is not allowed to make the substitution as Uxako was registered as a starting player and Tax as the team’s emergency sub. In the case of sickness like COVID, which caused many players in the 2022 Championship to be substituted for coaches or team managers, the emergency sub would be allowed to play on the starting roster. Aurora’s reason for their roster change did not qualify as an emergency and they were subsequently denied their substitution request.
Aurora was forced to stick to their starting roster for the event, but Uxako gave additional details concerning the team’s decision-making, including their attempt to subvert the substitute rule by asking Uxako to fake sickness, a qualifiable emergency that would allow Tax to take his place on the team.
Uxako then refused to play for the team and with the rulebook forbidding Tax from stepping in, Aurora was left with no other choice but to play out the rest of the event as a duo. Additionally, pre-game lobby chat logs revealed Uxako’s decision to step back and spectate the games, rather than play in them.
Currently, Aurora are fighting for their tournament lives in losers bracket round one, where ending in the bottom 10 teams would mean the end of their Championship run and their 2023 season. As the only team competing as a duo in the entire tournament, Aurora have to put up one of the tournament’s biggest performances to survive until losers bracket round two.
Update Sept. 8 4:04pm CT: Aurora’s 9impulse has delivered his side of the story, which paints the situation in a slightly different light. He claimed that much of the issues Aurora faced with Uxako were down to communication, as 9impulse said he personally doesn’t have very strong English, and the fact that the team needed a Bloodhound player, a character Uxako doesn’t play much.
9impulse also showed further screenshots of their discussion after Aurora realized they couldn’t play with Tax, trying to reconcile with Uxako and then suggesting that if Uxako didn’t want to play, then maybe he could feign sickness so that the team wouldn’t be forced to play as a duo.
That would still be an attempt to skirt the rules, but 9impulse’s claims and screenshots suggest the team attempted to patch things up and play with Uxako first, and then only suggested feigning sickness when Uxako said he was unsure about rejoining Aurora after initially being told they were going to replace him.
It’s also important to note that none of these players are native English speakers, with ojrein hailing from Russia, 9impulse from Belarus, and Uxako from Spain. As such, it’s difficult to tell what might have been lost in translation during these discussions.
Aurora finished the ALGS Championship as a duo, being eliminated in the first round of losers bracket play and finishing the tournament in 36th place overall.
