Unjustified Impact jump to Nyx Empyre amidst unpaid salaries, outstanding fees

Lycus Empire have announced today that they have acquired Unjustified's ESL Impact League squad, seeing Ashlynn "Valkenn" Brady and co. jump to a new organization after six months under Unjustified. Under Lycus Empire, the team have adopted the moniker Nyx Empyre and will be making their debut in ESL Impact League Season 7 in late February.

According to the team, Unjustified's Impact squad were forced to seek out a new home for 2025 after Unjustified's COO, Jeffery "Illusions" Smith stopped communicating with the team and paying them towards the end of the year. Like many small organizations, one person, in this case Smith, provided the lion's share of funding and was responsible for paying teams and settling other costs. Despite multiple efforts to contract Smith, the team were allegedly unable to make progress in having him pay outstanding fees, totaling $480, pushing them to leave Unjustified.

Unjustified's owner, James King, provided Dust2.us with the following statement:

Back in December, my Co-Owner, illusions (Jeff), went MIA regarding both his funding obligations and his managerial responsibilities, which primarily involved overseeing our Female rosters for CS2 and Call of Duty. Focusing on the Unjustified FE roster, we had an agreement in place that, upon their qualification for Impact, we would renegotiate a new contract that would include increased compensation on top of what they were already receiving in support from us. Throughout his absence, the roster made multiple attempts to set up meetings with Jeff.

However, Jeff repeatedly failed to attend these meetings and consistently ghosted the Impact roster who were trying to devise a plan for their next steps. Additionally, due to his absence, the roster has gone unpaid since December leaving the FE roster with outstanding amounts. On Wednesday, the team informed me that Impact had moved up the deadline for representation. With Jeff failing to meet before this new deadline, the roster ultimately chose to find a new organization to move forward with.

Concerning the outstanding balance Unjustified FE will be paid, currently communications with Jeff have been inconsistent however the roster will be paid as soon as possible regardless of Jeff meeting his financial obligations or not.

With this, King told Dust2.us that he plans on paying the team personally if Smith does not turn up in the coming days.

Regardless, this situation has pushed Unjustified to join Lycus, who also currently host a roster in ESEA Advanced.

Nyx Empyre now consists of:

• Kristen "PippySippy" Hendrickson

• Milla "MamaAlien" Schmidt

• Jayde "Jaydee" Slabosz

• Alexandra "ADK" Duquette Kistabish

• Vivian "Viv" Ngouv

• Ashlynn "Valkenn" Brady (Coach)

ESL Impact League S7 North America is set to start on February 26th.