M80 withdraw from ESL Challenger League Season 49
M80 has confirmed to Dust2.us that they have elected to pull out of ESL Challenger League Season 49, seeing the defending champions skip NA's top domestic league. The decision comes amidst a transitional period for the ESL Challenger League, which is set to host its final season under the old rulebook before transitioning to a new format where half of the invites will be determined by the Valve Ranking System (VRS) while the other half will directly come from ESEA Advanced.
M80's Vice President of Esports, Donald "SyykoNT" Muir told Dust2.us that the organization made the decision to withdraw from ESL Challenger League Season 49 to focus on other events while also pragmatically skipping this season in order to guard the team's VRS points, which are used to determine invites to almost all events in 2025.
Muir told Dust2.us that despite winning ESL Challenger League Season 48 last season, M80 ultimately came out of the league gaining fewer VRS points than the organization was comfortable with while also incurring the risk of losing points to other NA teams via the regular season. This is something that the organization sees as untenable, since being at home to compete also means missing out on European scrims and other opportunities.
In the future, Muir says the organization will reassess attending ECL as the direct invites will free the organization from having to defend a spot as was the case in previous seasons.
M80's decision to withdraw from ESL Challenger League Season 49 is the latest change in the team list for a league that is currently in a state of flux. With ex-FLUFFY AIMERS disbanding and M80 dropping out, two teams are set to be called up from ESL Challenger League Season 48 Relegation, with ex-Take Flyte and ex-LAG confirming they have accepted invites.
However, recently-signed Chicken Coop have also recently confirmed they have been offered a spot in ESL Challenger League Season 49, suggesting that another team has dropped out of the league. Dust2.us is actively investigating the situation with the aim of confirming the team list for the first ECL season of 2025.
