▲ Complexity gets another shot at making the upcoming ESL One Rio Major.

Photo via Complexity.

ESL has announced that Mad Lions have been forced to withdraw from the EU Minor Qualifier for ESL One due to their benching of Nicolai "Hunden" Petersen.

Many fans have questioned why Hunden simply couldn't play the Minor, to which MAD Lions provided the following statement to Inven Global.

"We have been in discussions with Hunden about transitioning him to a management role within the organization," Paulo Senra, VP, Global Content and PR for MAD Lions told Inven Global. "We’re excited to share more details soon. Due to this transition, Hunden was unable to play in the minor and based on the tournament rules, our roster was locked and so, therefore, a substitution could not be made. The team decided that given the circumstances that we will instead focus on the historic launch of Flashpoint 1 which begins next week in Los Angeles."

Mad Lions are one of the 10 founding teams for FLASHPOINT, so their decision to focus on the upcoming event is perhaps a bit understandable. However, the Major is usually considered the crown jewel for CS:GO teams.

Complexity is currently flying their players out to the EU Minor, which will be played online, but needed to have the players in Europe for ping reasons. EU Minor rules stipulate that 3/5 of the team members must be from EU countries in order to qualify, which Complexity has.

Apparently, the move was made with extremely short notice to the team, but Complexity's logistics team managed to pull off a miracle.

Complexity will take on Sprout on March 7 at 3 AM Pacific Time. They will have their work cut out for them as the EU region consistently produces the world's best CS:GO teams, and several heavy hitters are in this qualifier such as BIG, Fnatic, Dignitas, and others.