Breaking: Wildcard lose key piece for IEM Chengdu to food poisoning

Dust2.us has confirmed that Josh "JBa" Barutt will miss IEM Chengdu 2024 due to a severe case of food poisoning causing the player to miss his flight to China. With matches set to start in less than 24 hours at the time of publication and ESL being unable to arrange a replacement flight, Wildcard are now forced to field coach, João "horvy" Horvath, as a stand-in for the event.

JBa's absence from the server will undoubtedly be felt as he is Wildcard's highest-rated player in the past three months, with the rifler boasting a 1.13 rating. To make matters worse, JBa's absence means Wildcard will be playing IEM Chengdu with two stand-ins, as they are forced to field Ian "motm" Hardy in place of recent pickup Qihao "C4LLM3SU3" Su due to roster restrictions.

The Americans already had an extremely difficult IEM debut ahead of them as they are set to play Virtus.pro. This match will now be even more difficult as horvy is set to play his first LAN series in 4+ years.

Wildcard will therefore play IEM Chengdu 2024 with:

• Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz

• Keller "SLIGHT" Nilan

• Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek

• Ian "motm" Hardy (Stand-in)

• João "horvy" Horvath (Stand-in)

Wildcard will limp into their match against Virtus.pro on April 8th at 02:30AM.