Natus Vincere have announced that they have decided against playing in the ECS Season 2 Development League. Eugene "HarisPilton" Zolotarev, Natus Vincere's esports director, cited the team's "busy schedule and significant load" over the coming months as the reason to decline playing in the Developtment League, which will work as a qualifying platform for ECS. This is not the first time that Na`Vi prioritize other tournaments over ECS. In April, the team withdrew from the opening season of the $1.75 million league without having played a single game also due to a packed event schedule. Eight teams will compete in the European Development League, which will see the winner automatically get a spot in ECS Season 2. The runner-up and the third-placed sides will be pitted against the bottom two teams from Season 1 in promotion matches to determine the final two teams making it to the league. With Na`Vi declining to play the Development League, the list of participants for the competition currently looks as follows:
Na`Vi will not play in ECS Season 2 GODSENT
Gambit
FlipSid3
AGG (Open qualifier #1)
X (Open qualifier #2)
Tricked (Open qualifier #3)
Open qualifier #4
TBD
Gambit #11
Dauren 'AdreN' Kystaubayev
Dmitry 'hooch' Bogdanov
Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov
Rustem 'mou' Telepov
Ivan 'spaze' Obrezhan
AGG #39
Bartosz 'Hyper' Wolny
Piotr 'peet' Ćwikliński
Dominik 'GruBy' Swiderski
X #15
Michael 'Friis' Jørgensen
Andreas 'MODDII' Fridh
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander
Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangså
Tricked #33
Martin 'PERCY' Wessel
Nicolai 'HUNDEN' Petersen
Peter 'Inzta' Kragelund
Jakob 'JUGi' Hansen
Nikolaj 'niko' Kristensen
FlipSid3 #12
Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
Oleksandr 'Shara' Hordieyev
Georgi 'WorldEdit' Yaskin
Jan 'wayLander' Rahkonen
GODSENT #3
Markus 'pronax' Wallsten
Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist
Andreas 'znajder' Lindberg
Jesper 'JW' Wecksell
Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson