Wildcard join M80 in withdrawing from ESL Challenger League Season 49

Wildcard have joined M80 in confirming to Dust2.us their decision to withdraw from ESL Challenger League Season 49, seeing North America's second-highest ranked team set to skip NA's top domestic league. Wildcard finished ESL Challenger League Season 48 in a strong position, notching a top-six finish despite their Swedish duo having to spend much of the season playing from Europe due to visa issues.

Wildcard's manager, Jeremy "Jeremy9000" Gray, told Dust2.us that the organization's decision to withdraw from ESL Challenger League are similar to the concerns raised by M80, with the league offering too few VRS points compared to those available in Europe, while the risk of losing points to domestic teams is also a concern.

For Wildcard, the team are in a unique situation as they are simultaneously on the Americas and Europe rankings due to Wildcard featuring two Americas players, two European players, and one Asian player (South African players are classified as Asian). This means the squad can be offered and accept regional invites in the European region.

This could be a lucrative opportunity for Wildcard to compete in the myriad number of online European events, gaining a leg up on their NA rivals, and spending more time in Europe as a result.

With Wildcard confirmed to be out of ESL Challenger League Season 49, it greatly helps to clarify the final team list for the division. Knowing that three teams dropped out (M80, Wildcard, ex-FLUFFY AIMERS) and three teams were called up (ex-Take Flyte, ex-LAG, and Chicken Coop), there should be sixteen lineups ready for ECL S49.

With these intuitions, the unofficial team list for ECL S49 looks as follows:

ESL Challenger League Season 49 is set to start on January 21st.