ALGS Championship team chooses to play with only two players due to lack of “synergy”
Joe Brady/ ALGSTSM won the 2023 ALGS Championship and will look to repeat the feat in Year 4.
Aurora Gaming is playing the remainder of the ALGS Championship tournament with only two players, after they told their third teammate there was a lack “synergy”.
Aurora Gaming is an EMEA team hit with visa issues before the ALGS Championship began. The organization announced on September 5 that its IGL Kiryl ‘9impulse’ Kostsiu and Lev ‘taskmast33r’ Grigoriev had not yet secured visas for the tournament.
9impulse eventually secured his papers to play at the British LAN tournament, however, the team’s IGL has not been able to secure his in time to play so far. So, the organization brought in Entropiq player Jose ‘Uxako’ Llosa to compete in his stead.
With the substitute, Aurora was able to secure 60 points in the group stage and a spot in the loser’s bracket of the next stage of the tournament. However, Uxako revealed hours ahead of the bracket stage on social media that Aurora had opted to play without him due to “synergy” issues.
“Kinda sad since I traveled for a lot of hours but it is what it is, I wigh them GL. Just posting it so no one gets surprised when I’m not on stage,” he said.
Aurora playing ALGS Championship with only two players
Uxako said that Aurora had decided to play with their emergency substitute, but an administrator for Apex Legends Esports responded to the post saying the team could not do that without a real emergency.
“So this means Aurora is choosing to play with 2 players. A qualifying emergency would have to occur to allow them to utilize an emergency sub,” Zac Conely, a League Operations Manager for Apex Legends, said.
Hours later, Aurora loaded into the first match of the loser’s bracket with only Kiryl ‘9impulse’ Kostsiu and Svyatoslav ‘ojrein’ Korochinsky in the server.
Aurora could have reinstated Uxako back into the lineup, however, according to in-game chat logs during the tournament the Spanish player did not want to continue to play for the team.
“Ye he don’t want to play with us anymore,” 9impluse allegedly wrote in the in-game chat.
Uxako later claimed that the team wanted him to say he was sick so that they could use their emergency substitute.
After Aurora were eliminated from the competition, 9impulse released a statement stating his version of events.
“We took Uxako. It was my decision since I think he’s a strong player, but on LAN we realised he has a very different game vision, me and ojrein are not playing his way, and he doesn’t understand how we usually play,” 9impulse said. “I wish only good luck to him and his team and I wish they will qualify for LAN.”
He also posted a supposed screenshot of his conversation with Uxako asking him to say he is sick so that Aurora can field their emergency substitute.
