As they are the highest ranked team that qualified for the EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier, ENCE will skip the preliminary phase and move directly to the group stage of the $300,000 tournament.

This is a result of the ruleset EPICENTER set down when announcing the Wild Card Qualifier, which would include five teams. However, only four of them would actually compete at the LAN Qualifier, with the team with the best HLTV ranking on October 19th set to receive an invite to the group stage.

ENCE are set to attend another Big Event next week

As our ranking updates once per week, on Mondays, it is already apparent that ENCE is the team with the highest ranking and will advance to the EPICENTER group stage directly. EPICENTER is yet to confirm this, though, and is expected to do so on the previously mentioned date, October 19th.

ENCE are currently ranked 11th, with their StarSeries i-League S6 win from last week helping them jump seven places since the last ranking update. ENCE has been a team on the rise for quite some time, though, as they picked up impressive BO3 wins at ESL One Cologne, finished third at the Europe Minor and, most recently, as runners-up at DreamHack Open Montreal.

With this, the team list for the EPICENTER group stage looks as follows::

Natus Vincere
FaZe
AVANGAR
Wild Card #1 Liquid
Ninjas in Pyjamas
ENCE
Wild Card #2

The last two participating teams will be decided at the EPICENTER Wild Card LAN Qualifier, which will take place a day before the event starts, on October 22. The four teams will battle it out in a double-elimination bracket, with the two best ones advancing to the main tournament.

These four teams will compete at the EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier:

Virtus.pro
Swole Patrol HellRaisers
5POWER Swole Patrol #41 Braxton 'swag' PierceRyan 'freakazoid' AbadirEdgar 'MarKE' MaldonadoJordan 'Zellsis' MontemurroAustin 'Cooper' Abadir Liquid #2 Nick 'nitr0' CannellaKeith 'NAF' MarkovicJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEpitacio 'TACO' de MeloRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken AVANGAR #27 Bektiyar 'fitch' BahytovTimur 'buster' TulepovAidyn 'KrizzeN' TurlybekovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali Virtus.pro #30 Filip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiMichał 'MICHU' MüllerPiotr 'morelz' TaterkaMichał 'snatchie' Rudzki FaZe #6 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenOlof 'olofmeister' KajbjerLadislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsNikola 'NiKo' KovačHåvard 'rain' Nygaard Ninjas in Pyjamas #8 Patrik 'f0rest' LindbergChristopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundDennis 'dennis' EdmanJonas 'Lekr0' OlofssonFredrik 'REZ' Sterner 5POWER #64 Gan-Erdene 'dobu' BatboldBat-Enkh 'kabal' BatbayarZhiHai 'QKA' FuPeng 'xiaosaGe' SongWei 'shuadapai' Wang ENCE #11 Aleksi 'allu' JalliJani 'Aerial' JussilaSami 'xseveN' LaasanenAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenJere 'sergej' Salo HellRaisers #12 Kirill 'ANGE1' KarasiowVladyslav 'bondik' NechyporchukÖzgür 'woxic' EkerBence 'DeadFox' BöröczIssa 'ISSAA' Murad Natus Vincere #3 Ioann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoEgor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' Sharipov