Less than a week after finalizing its League of Legends roster, European esports organization Inspire Esports will merge with Belgian organization Epsilon eSports and compete under its banner for the upcoming European Challenger Series, sources close to both organizations tell ESPN.
On Saturday, the team's Twitter account tweeted out that it would be undergoing change and followed up with a cryptic tweet about not being represented in the Challenger Series this split:
Change is in the Air. .
- Inspire eSports (@TeamInspireLoL) April 30, 2016
Pending Riot Approval Inspire wont be represented in the upcoming Challenger Series. More News to follow.
- Inspire eSports (@TeamInspireLoL) April 30, 2016
But sources say that it's due to the merger, and that Epsilon will now host the League roster and spot that Inspire occupied in the spring. The roster for that spot was completed last week, as reported by ESPN.
Inspire's management retained three of its players from the spring--top laner Max "Satorius" Günther, mid laner Sofyan "CozQ" Rechchad, and AD carry Paweł "Woolite" Pruski. Additionally, the team acquired two former LCS players for its jungle and support roles, former Team Dignitas player Thomas "Kirei" Yuen and former Team ROCCAT player Lewis "NoXiAK" Simon Felix.
That team will compete among five others beginning in June, including Copenhagen Wolves, Team Huma, and Millenium, as well two others that will make it in the coming weeks through a set of qualifiers.
Over the last few years, Epsilon has been known for housing teams in several games, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty, Halo, and SMITE.
In Counter-Strike, the team has worked with names such as Fnatic's Jesper "JW" Wecksell and Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, G2 Esports' Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom and Richard "shox" Papillon, and EnVyUs' Dan "apEX" Madesclaire. However, in late 2015, some of the organization's Counter-Strike players were banned due to match-fixing. It now has a full Swedish team, which competes at a mid-tier level in Europe.
As for Call of Duty, the team took third-fourth in Stage 1 of the Call of Duty World League playoffs a month ago. That team currently is in fourth place of Stage 2 of the CWL, after beating Supremacy, Team Vitality, and LDLC, and only losing to Exertus Esports.
Inspire Esports did not respond to a request to comment by time of publication.