This Week in eSports - CLG.eu rumours, AL bans, Roster Changes!

What a crazy busy week in eSports! A ton of changes have come about in the pro scene in anticipation for season 3.
Read on for information regarding rumours of the former CLG.eu's possible new sponser, a giant blow to the Absolute Legends roster, the new roster for FeaR, a change in Team Dynamic, and a change in Team MRN! WOW!


CLG.eu Rumours
First things first, since I know all of you are as excited as I am to find out who is going to be taking over the sponsoring of the former CLG.eu. There have been RUMOURS, I repeat, RUMOURS of a new CLG.eu sponsor coming out of the woodwork. Keep in mind that all of this information is not official in any way and could change or not be true at all. (Don't shoot the messenger, I just figured you all might want to know what's circulating!). Information has been spreading around about the possibility of Evil Geniuses taking on the European team.

Rod Breslau, a writer for GameSpot and a host on LiveOnThree has been tweeting about the sponsoring here:

"If you missed it, sources tell me the former CLG.EU LoL squad will be joining EG as their first LoL team: http://www.gamespot.com/6402011"

According to his sources, Evil Geniuses outbid Azubu in the attempt to obtain the team. If this turns out to be true, EG will have acquired their first League of Legends team. Not only a team, but a team that's already qualified for the Season 3 Championship Series!


Absolute Legends Bans
Issues within the Absolute Legends team have arisen recently. Allegations against FOUR of five of the team members have come up stemming from possible cheating during the IPL Season 3 qualifier tournament. Johnny “Unstoppable” Tran, Nicholas “Nubbypoohbear” Harlan, George “Zekent” Liu, and Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee have all been banned from competing in:

1. LCS Season 3 North American Online Tournament, scheduled for January 4-6, 2013;
2. LCS Season 3 North American Qualifier, scheduled for January 11-13, 2013.

"We know that it was wrong and we feel obligated to formally post an apology before **** hits the fan.

After this first game, we chose to knock out the spectator option to prevent the temptation.

We are sincerely sorry to TD and hope that this doesn't affect peoples' views on LoL as an e-sport.

On behalf of myself and my team,
-Zekent"

There is also photo evidence of said Skype conversation that was posted by bitingpig, the Senior eSports Manager at Riot Games in his post about the incident located here on the forums. He released this statement regarding the incident:

"Hi, Summoners –

The ruling below is the result of our investigation into the facts surrounding a ghosting incident at the recent IPL Season 3 Qualifier Tournament for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). The tl;dr version is that we’ve disqualified the players involved from the remaining LCS Season 3 qualifying events in North America.
We’re disappointed in the decisions made by these players and believe that there are no excuses for breaking the rules in order to gain a competitive advantage over an opposing team

Clean play and good sportsmanship are mission-critical for players seeking to compete in the LCS and for the entire LoL community."

Here's a look at the Skype screenshots:

I know the images are small and hard to read. If you cannot read them, visit the forum post for a larger version.

New Team FeaR Roster
Team FeaR has announced who will be filling up the last few spots on their roster for the upcoming Season 3! According to this GGChronicle article, they welcomed Benny "Sycho Sid" Hung as their new top lane player. This leaves their current top laner, Chris "Zuna" Buechter out of a lane! Zuna will be moving to fill the role as the teams new AD Carry!

Team Dynamic Sponsor Change
The former Team Dynamic has left their sponsor and have changed their name! They will be playing under the new banner of Good Game University (GG U). This was confirmed on twitter by two of the team members.

"Our team(TD) has decided to move along. We are going under the name of Good Game University GG U. A new beginning for the all of us in 2013." - DontMashMe's Twitter

"Parting ways with Team Dynamic, you may now call us Good Game University (GGU). A fresh start to 2013, time for some success baby. #GGU" - NintendudeX's Twitter

 Team MRN's Roster
Finally, Team MRN have come out with a statement on their new line up for Season 3. MarnORZ put this tweet out:

"Team MRN Roster for S3: ecco, Heartbeattt, AtomicN, ClakeyD, MegaZero." - MarnORZ's Twitter