After entering UK CS on June 20th, i2K is being forced to use two stand-ins at EPIC.LAN 45, Alex “f0cus” James, and zenta, for Oscar “Keto” Kilvington and haznoodle.
Lorenzo “LTH” Venanzi is no stranger to bringing a ragtag group of players together for an EPIC.LAN and causing an upset. He has had notable results at EPIC.LAN 42, placing second, and finishing 5th-6th at EPIC.LAN 41.
With a new squad under the i2K banner being announced less than a month before EPIC.LAN 45, it felt like finally LTHÂ would come to LAN with a full five roster with no stand-ins. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions and health problems, that will not be the case.
The first appeal for a stand-in came when the roster parted ways with Keto after their failure to qualify for the UKIC Season 7 Masters. Challenging in all four of the open qualifiers, they advanced to Round 3 three times, but were bested by CORE3 twice and Buzzkill to stop them in their tracks.
The hole was first plugged by f0cus from CORE3, who had previously played with LTH in their grand final run at EPIC.LAN 42 last year.
LTH forced to use two stand-ins for EPIC.LAN 45
Unfortunately, this was not the only woe for the squad as they were forced to look for a final player after haznoodle had to pull out due to health issues. With only three days to go, luckily, i2K were able to complete their roster with zenta coming in as a saving grace.
i2K continues to be looking for a fifth player to complete their roster, but could also be looking for two after EPIC.LAN 45.
The British team is currently competing in ESEA Intermediate Season 54, and despite their troubles, they were able to win using Shane “shaney” Smith and Tom “trouto” Troughton.
As previously mentioned, LTH is good at conjuring some magic for his mix teams at EPIC.LANs, but this might be the hardest event ever to place highly.
So far, Iberian Soul, The Last Resort, FUT, AaB (then Preasy), Alliance, and Glitchtech are all travelling to Kettering to try and score some precious VRS points. This unusual hotspot is because the Valve Ranking system includes an extra modifier, increasing the relative power of LAN results over online results.
i2K will be playing at EPIC.LAN 45 with:
Lorenzo “LTH” Venanzi
Oliver “Maza” Mazarelo
dragonst4r
Alex “f0cus” James
zenta
