Top North American teams to miss Fragadelphia 16 finals

Nerd Street have announced the top teams from the Winter Championships ranking which have been directly invited to the second and third stages of Fragadelphia 16. The number of teams qualifying into the second stage from the last chance qualifier has also increased from eight to twelve.

Orgless, which are ranked fourth on the standings and were set to receive a travel stipend, have declined their invitation to the event citing the RMR open qualifiers being too close and therefore being their priority. The team also recently swapped out Gage "Infinite" Green for Kenneth "koosta" Suen and are yet to play an official match with their new AWPer.

The first Pro League team opting to miss the $60,000 event is Party Astronauts, who recently reunited with their former member Wesley “viz” Harris. The team also are set to travel to a bootcamp in Germany, which was almost lost due to a previous mishap, a week prior to their Pro League group which commences on March 23rd.

Complexity, who are not set to travel to Europe until the end of the month for Pro League, are the final notable team to be skipping the highly anticipated North American LAN. The roster’s last domestic tournament, while still under the Extra Salt flag, was ESEA Premier Season 39 at the end of 2021 where they claimed a forfeit victory over ChocoCheck. Despite having only played a single Cash Cup, the team was ranked 7th in the rankings and were due to be invited to the third stage due to Paytyn "junior" Johnson’s time on Bad News Bears.

The direct invite slots to the third stage of the event, which is to be played as four GSL groups with all BO3 matches, will be filled by Fourth Quarter, Big Chillin, and ATK who are ranked 11th to 13th respectively. ONET4P were also set to receive an invite to the third stage but have opted to not participate for unknown reasons.

The remaining eight slots in the third stage will be filled by another eight coming from the second stage which is also set to be played in an identical format as the third. Four teams from the rankings; Old But Gold, UGK Esports, Kinship, and Team oNe, will be joined by twelve qualified teams from the first stage which will be an open-signup last chance qualifier. The format for the LCQ will be announced following the end of the signup period on March 2nd.

The fourth and final stage of the event will be the playoffs which will be played out in a single-elimination bracket with all matches being BO3. The bracket will be filled out by the top eight teams from the previous stage. The prize pool distribution has not yet been announced at the time of publication.

The full invited team list for the event is:

The Last Chance Qualifier starts on March 3rd at 10:00AM and currently has 15 teams signed up.