by The Electronic Sports League announced on Thursday that Complexity will replace paiN in the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023 due to the team’s inability to compete.
According to the tournament operator, paiN’s decision to withdraw from the Counter-Strike event was due to a player’s inability to attend. As a result, Complexity will attend the LAN competition in their place.
“Due to a member of @paiNGamingBR being unavailable for IEM Cologne, the Brazilians have opted to withdraw from the tournament,” the update read.
“As per our rulebook we will be replacing them with @Complexity, the next highest ranked team in the ESL World Ranking.”
Complexity, currently the highest ranked North American team, were given the next available place in the IEM Cologne 2023 in accordance with the ESL rule book. The team are the next highest-ranked squad in the ESL World Rankings and will begin their tournament run from the Play-in stage. Their current seeding is still being determined.
The IEM Cologne 2023 Play-in will feature 16 teams facing off against each other for a chance to compete in the main event. The first phase of the tournament will kick off on July 26 and last three days. It will feature top teams like Apeks and Liquid as well as FURIA, Fnatic, and Astralis.
Only eight teams will join the main event in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany, which boasts a prize pool of $1,000,000.
Complexity will join the event as the only North American representative. The team will first attend the BLAST Premier Fall Groups on July 13 before moving to Germany for the LAN event.
The IEM Cologne Play-in list currently includes the following teams:
● Monte
● fnatic
● Astralis
● MOUZ
● FURIA
● 9INE
● Liquid
● Apeks
● Grayhound
● BIG Academy
● Imperial
● Into the Breach
● Ninjas in Pyjamas
● FORZE
● Complexity
● TheMongolz
