A bizarre incident came to light in the ESL One Birmingham 2024: North America (NA) Closed Qualifier when one of NextNext’s players overslept, resulting in the team forfeiting the upper bracket round one series against nouns. The casters informed viewers during the livestream that NextNext had tried to contact its player but he appeared to still be sleeping after the series failed to begin at the stipulated time. In the discussion, no reference was made to the name of the player. As a result of the loss, NextNext, which found its way into the closed qualifier through the open qualifiers, dropped to the lower bracket.
Player oversleeps, forcing NextNext to forfeit ESL One Birmingham 2024 qualifier series
The ESL One Birmingham 2024: North America (NA) Closed Qualifier began with NextNext facing off against nouns in a series that favored the latter. However, the two teams did not get to face off since NextNext had to accept a default defeat for one of the most peculiar reasons.
During the livestream, American Dota 2 caster Ricky “rkryptic” Peterson revealed that one of NextNext’s players was still sleeping, and because the team did not know when he would wake up, the teammates chose to forfeit the entire series rather than just the first game.
As a consequence, NextNext was relegated to the lower bracket, whilst nouns advanced to the next round in the upper bracket. Fortunately for NextNext, the next series in the lower bracket was scheduled a few hours later, giving its player enough time to return.
As it turned out a few hours later, the team’s lower bracket series versus Yangzhiganlu did not take place since the latter failed to field a full five man squad, leaving NextNext with a default victory this time.
NextNext eventually faced BammySoy in the second round of the lower bracket the next day, where it was easily beaten and ousted from the qualifier. The team experienced an eventful sequence of events in the ESL One Birmingham 2024: NA Closed Qualifier, culminating in a rather lackluster conclusion.
Meanwhile, in another closed qualifier in NA, nouns and Shopify Rebellion emerged as the two most formidable competitors. Shopify Rebellion has already advanced to the grand final, while nouns and BammySoy will face off in the lower bracket final. There is one slot available for the main event.
