European marksman Pierre “Steeelback” Medjaldi is set to play with North American Challenger side Imagine this Tuesday and Wednesday, the Daily Dot has learned.
Both the team’s starting and substitute AD carries, Ritchie “Intense” Ngo and Cody “Massacre” Sun, failed to obtain passports and visas in-time to practice in the team house this week. Medjaldi’s team, Odyssey, owned by pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, has lended the player to Imagine until the situation is resolved.
“When we found out Massacre [Sun] was a Chinese citizen living in Canada rather than a Canadian citizen, we realised there was a probable chance that we would be unable to get him here before the playoffs so we started looking at contingencies,” Imagine owner Gerard Kelly told the Daily Dot. “After speaking to Martin’s [Shkreli] staff we decided to try out Intense [Ngo] but when it came time to prepare to move him to the house we were informed he had just processed his passport (he is Canadian) application, which would delay him from being able to move. That combined with some other issues led us to working with Martin to move Steeelback [Medjaldi] to the house and put him on the roster.”
Medjaldi and his former team Fnatic won the 2015 Spring European League of Legends Championship Series title. Then, at the Midseason Invitational, the team gave Korean powerhouse SK Telecom T1 a run for its money, losing in a 2-3 defeat in the semi-finals. But despite this performance, Fnatic dropped Medjaldi in place of star Martin “Rekkles” Larsson.
Gambit Gaming intended to give Medjaldi a tryout after he returned home from the Midseason Invitational. However, once it was clear that Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou was a free agent, the organization moved quickly to sign him, leaving Medjaldi out to dry.
From there, he moved on to a Ranked 5’s squad named Turing B, later known as Odyssey, a conglomerate of former Team Fusion players plus some of North America’s top Challenger talent that wanted Medjaldi at its helm. The team geared up for the Challenger Series qualifiers, but fell flat against Cloud9 Tempest in the second round.
His first games with Imagine are on July 14-15 versus the same team that knocked him out of Challenger: Cloud9 Tempest. Only the second game at 11pm ET will be broadcasted on Riot Games’ Twitch channel.
Photo via Jacob Wolf/Daily Dot
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