As EPIC.LAN looms closer and closer, and the hustle and bustle is at its peak; more European teams are signing up, but also dropping out.
French team FUT, are the latest team to confirm the trip to Kettering. On paper, FUT could be the next coming of a French superteam as they feature some of the biggest names to come out of France. Unfortunately, over two months into the project, there are no redeemable results to point towards.
Headlined by Audric “JACKZ” Jug and Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom, the organisation sit 251st out of 273 in the world on the VRS ranking, very far out of the invite threshold for Tier-2/3 events.
The French-speaking team started by competing under the name Mousquetaires and placed second in United 21 League Season 31. Outside of that result, it has been very underwhelming for the French side. They have an average age of 27.4, hardly making them young prospects, with 22 year-old former Into the Breach rifler Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier their youngest player at 22. They also have Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom signed – but as a content creator and substitute, rather than a full-time player.
EPIC.LAN 45 won’t be the first open LAN that JACKZ and co have travelled to this year, as they took part in Glitched Masters 2025 in Sweden. They wouldn’t last long as FUT were knocked out by Sashi – meaning they missed out on the HLTV stages. Therefore, travelling to Kettering will be a shot at redemption.
FUT has enormous name value with players who have played and won at a Tier 1 level, the issue is, not for a long time. misutaaa’s last trophy came at IEM Winter 2021, the final event Vitality attended with a French roster and before he switched to VALORANT. Like many others, FUT are bottlenecked with their VRS rank and has no opportunity to prove themselves because of this major limitation. This then puts a lot of importance on EPIC.LAN 45 for the French squad to bolster their rank.
As mentioned previously, as one team signed up, two dropped out. UKCSGO can confirm that Inner Circle has dropped out of the BYOC LAN.
UKCSGO reached out to the team manager, Krzysztof “boskacz” Jędras, about why the team pulled out:
After carefully reviewing the calendar and considering new events that have come up, we’ve decided to take a step-by-step approach instead of risking missing two or three potential online competitions. Hopefully we will join for the next edition!
Alongside the new Polish roster, ECSTATIC, as of now, will not be attending EPIC.LAN 45 due to visa-related issues. There is a small chance the highest-ranked squad who were set to attend will resolve their problems, but it looks rather unlikely, UKCSGO can confirm.
FUT thus join fellow international squads Preasy, WildLotus, Alliance, and Glitchtech, who are travelling to Kettering to compete at EPIC.LAN 45 to harness the LAN multiplier and climb the VRS leaderboard. Unlike previous EPIC.LANs, HLTV coverage has already been confirmed, though it is unclear if this will be just for the top 4, as in previous events, or if more games will be covered.
As of now, there are 17 tickets available with only 6 days to go until signups are closed for EPIC.LAN 45 – meaning there could even be more teams yet to come.
