B8 risks rankings, skips FISSURE event due to Russian ties
B8 Esports won’t take part in the FISSURE Playground #1 Counter-Strike 2 tournament. The Ukrainian team backed out after a fan poll and concerns over the event’s links to Russian firms. One issue was BetBoom, a Russian betting company that works in Crimea. They also questioned the organiser, FISSURE, a Serbian company. As a Ukrainian team, B8 couldn’t participate while the war with Russia continued.
Before deciding, B8 ran a fan poll on Telegram. About 52% voted to play, 33% voted no, and 15% were neutral. Still, the team chose to withdraw. Many fans criticised them for not following the results.
B8 admitted that skipping the event would cost them points in the Valve Ranking System (VRS), and other teams would gain them instead. The team will also miss a share of the $450,000 prize pool.
B8 wrote, ‘As a result, we will lose direct invites to the next tier-1 events, and therefore, we will lose all our achievements over the past six months.’
B8 now focuses on the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. They’ve beaten Team Falcons and HEROIC but lost to Virtus.pro. The Austin Major has a $1.25 million prize pool, almost three times more than FISSURE.
