BLAST removes ATOX from Open Lisbon teamlist over "provisional suspension from ESIC"

Mongolian team ATOX will no longer attend BLAST Open Lisbon, a $400,000 tournament set to kick off in two weeks. ATOX's participation has been withdrawn as a result of the team being "subject to a provisional suspension from all ESIC [Esports Integrity Commission] member events".

To not decrease the number of teams attending BLAST Open Lisbon, BLAST invited The Huns to replace ATOX. They finished runners-up in BLAST Rising Asia.

While BLAST mentioned ESIC in their announcement, the esports watchdog is yet to formally issue a suspension to ATOX.

However, this comes after Chinese commentator Yunqing "⁠Searph⁠" Hu claimed that "a team ranked within the top 30 in VRS [Valve Regional Standings] is under investigation by ESIC for suspected match-fixing in EPL 2024".

"ESIC internally stated that the investigation may last for several weeks, and the organizer of the next competition for this team said that they have learned about the ongoing investigation and are ready to prepare a plan for the team to be banned at any time," Searph wrote on February 26th.

As a result of The Huns replacing ATOX, the seeding and opening matches of BLAST Open Lisbon changed slightly. The Huns are the last-seeded team of the event, which bumped M80 and Imperial up a bit as ATOX was the original 14th seed.

M80 were set to face G2 previously, but now they'll play versus The MongolZ. You can check the new seeding and all opening matches of BLAST Open Lisbon below.