European Challenger squad Inspire Esports lost four members today after failing to qualify for the League Championship Series (LCS) just four days ago.
The team formed at the end of December last year with the LCS in mind. On Tuesday they lost to Team Huma in the Challenger Series playoff semifinals, missing a shot to compete for a spot in the LCS. Now jungler Nubar “Maxlore” Sarafian, mid laner Sofyan “CozQ” Rechchad, Paweł “Woolite” Pruski, and Daniel Ernst “Wendelbo” Wendelbo have decided not to renew their contracts with the organization, announcing their free agencies on Twitter.
The remaining member of the squad, top laner Max “Satorius” Günther, has remained silent concerning his availability for potential opportunities.
“We are looking into budgeting for the next season and will try to figure out how we want to go into the next split,” Inspire Esports general manager Michael “Michai” Schorr tells the Daily Dot. “We are still in close contact to our former players but while we calculate our budget, they are free to look into any opportunity that might be presented to them. It’s not impossible that we field the same or a very similar roster next split but we’ll look into all options.”
Inspire Esports has seen moderate success throughout this season of the European Challenger Series. In the regular season the team took second place, just below French squad Millenium. However, in the playoffs they walked away with third-fourth and requalification for the Challenger Series after losing to Team Huma.
The team was originally built off the back of Denial Esports’ League of Legends squad, many of which were allegedly owed payments by the organization.
Since the team requalified automatically Rechchad, Pruski, and Wendelbo retained the spot—thanks to Riot Games’ three-fifths rule—and joined a new organization, known as Inspire Esports. Sarafian and Günther were picked up after that.
What will happen to the spot now is uncertain. The organization will need to reconcile with its players or lose the spot, which will open up to a qualification tournament in the offseason.
Photo via Riot Games/Flickr (All rights reserved, used with permission)
