Vendetta out of ECL as Snakes Den slither in

Following the news earlier this week that Party Astronauts would join the ECL division at the eleventh hour, Vendetta has been marked as dead and will be replaced by Snakes Den for Season 45. The news was announced this morning on Twitter by NA ECL admin Zyrus "Osodank" Bechstein, also stating that Snakes Den will receive the last seed for vetoes in Group B.

Being marked as dead, Vendetta's absence from ECL season 45 brings an end to their two-season tenure in the division after forming the roster in August 2022. The roster which now features the likes of Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk, narrowly missed out on playoffs for Season 44, losing a crunch match against Strife in the penultimate week which resulted in Strife claiming the final spot in the playoffs for Group B. The final blow for Vendetta came last week as Silas "silas" Marrufo was forced to take a step back from competing as a result of out-of-server factors, while Kevin "consti" Yi and Andrew "Tender" Cote announced yesterday they would be linking up with Gabe "Spongey" Greiner to compete in ESEA Advanced.

Promotion to ECL marks a return for Snakes Den to the division, after spending the last two seasons in ESEA Advanced. Despite being brought in as a replacement team, the team that fields former ATK AWPer McKinley "Cyrix" Hollison very nearly earned their way in via ECL Relegation, losing to Limitless 2-1 in the upper semifinals, before falling 2-0 to 1 JIN in the lower bracket.

The team will be competing with the following roster:

• McKinley "Cyrix" Hollison

• Dylan "DJF" Ferreira

• Stewart "bird" Shining

• Mason "Lake" Sanderson

• Dwight "Calix" Nguyen

• Kyle "Just2EZ" Tan (Substitute)

• Lucas "zander" Carvalho (Coach)

Snakes Den won't have long to wait before their ECL debut, with the division set to kick off next week on April 10th.