Bad News Bears replace Cloud9 in ECS Season 7 Week 2
Cloud9 will not participate in the second week of ECS Season 7 due to "extenuating circumstances", Dust2.us has learned. INTZ and FURIA, who placed second and third in the Pinnacle Cup, are already participating in the week, while both Singularity and Denial, who occupy the first and fourth seeds respectively, are still in China for WESG. As such, the fifth seeded team from the Pinnacle Cup, Bad News Bears, will take the final spot.
Cloud9's extenuating circumstances presumably revolves around their currently incomplete roster, with the team having ended the trial of Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro at the start of March. Maikil "Golden" Selim also returned to the active roster, with Robin "flusha" Rönnquist stepping away from the game for an indeterminate period of time.
Earlier in the month, the recently-benched mousesports star Miikka "suNny" Kemppi was linked with a move to Cloud9, although a report by Jarek "DeKay" Lewis of Dexerto now suggests that those talks have stalled, and that suNny may be headed to ENCE instead. With that, Cloud9's roster is reduced to four players, leaving them unable to participate in matches for the time being.
The removal of the #1 seed in Cloud9 has caused for the tournament bracket to be reseeded, with NRG taking the top seed and now being drawn up against Spacestation in the first quarterfinal matchup. compLexity took up the second seed, and now faces Bad News Bears at the bottom of the bracket. The previous Brazilian clash between INTZ and FURIA has also been re-drawn, placing INTZ against eUnited while FURIA will look to fend off Luminosity.
The new bracket, with times in EDT, now looks as follows:
| March 18th | |
|---|---|
 NRG -vs- Spacestation |
6:00 PM |
eUnited -vs-  INTZ |
6:00 PM |
| FURIA -vs- Luminosity |
9:00 PM |
Bad News Bears -vs-  compLexity |
9:00 PM |
Bad News Bears currently sit at sixth in the ESEA MDL Season 30 standings with a 9-4 record, with four matches left to be played. One more win would lock in a playoffs spot for the team, which they will have the opportunity to score later tonight in a match against Old Guys Club at 9 PM EDT.
