Season 9 of the American ESL Pro League begins today, and for many Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams it has been a rocky road to get here.
Just one day before the competition was to begin, compLexity Gaming announced that Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert will be standing in for Ricky “Rickeh” Mulholland due to visa issues for the Australian. For now, Rickeh is stuck in Canada.
“n0thing lives out in the west coast and he is willing to play. We’re very thankful. He has a lot of familiarity with the squad,” compLexity founder and CEO Jason Lake said.
n0thing has played with the majority of the team’s current roster before. He played for compLexity Gaming at the IEM Katowice Major and as stand-in for the CS:GO team from January to the end of March this year.
n0thing first joined compLexity Gaming in 2013, when the organization acquired his former team from Quantic Gaming. By August 2014, n0thing and his fellow compLexity teammates joined Cloud9. Under the Cloud9 banner, n0thing took first at ESL Pro League Season 4, one of North America’s first big tournament victories since 2006. But in 2017, he was benched.
n0thing started streaming under Cloud9 until his contract expired in the spring of 2018. After his release from C9, n0thing became a full-time Twitch streamer. He would sometimes stand in for other teams, including the time he made it to the finals at ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018 with mousesports.
n0thing’s familiarity with compLexity runs through the roster with the exception of the squad’s newest member, Hunter “SicK” Mims. With just one day to prepare before the tournament begins, it’s definitely a big obstacle for the team to overcome.
compLexity wasn’t the first organization to choose last minute stand-ins due to visa problems. Renegades are reportedly playing with two stand-ins. Australians Sean “Gratisfaction” Kaiwai and Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad will be replaced by Owen “smooya” Butterfield and Stephen “reltuC” Cutler thanks to continuing visa issues.
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