ENCE to replace Liquid at IEM Beijing

ESL has announced that ENCE will be replacing Liquid at IEM Beijing as the North American team pulled out citing a dense schedule.

The 8-team $250,000 IEM Beijing is slated to take place on November 7-10 at the Beijing University Students' Stadium, with four of the to top five teams in the world invited to attend before Liquid announced their withdrawal.

ENCE will take Liquid's place at IEM Beijing

In a video on Twitter Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski talked about the toll traveling has taken on the team, the reason they cite for their withdrawal from the event in China. Having qualified for the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals and the BLAST Pro Series Global Finals, Liquid will have a full schedule as they are also slated to play BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen and are in contention to make the ECS Season 8 Finals.

Taking their place will be the Finnish side ENCE, who have played BLAST Pro Series Moscow, ESL One New York, and DreamHack Masters Malmö since the end of the Major. Currently on their calendar is the CS:GO Asia Championship which is slated to take place in Shanghai, China, 10 days after IEM Beijing, making their invitation to the tournament a natural choice.

With ENCE substituting Liquid in Beijing, the team list is:

Astralis
mousesports
FaZe
ViCi

Evil Geniuses
Vitality
ENCE
TYLOO