In a surprising announcement today, Ubisoft declared that the former eUnited roster is ineligible to compete within the US Division for the 2021 season.
With the 2020 season coming to an end, Ubisoft explained in their blog post today how the ownership of league spots works within the Rainbow Six Circuit.
With eUnited’s departure from the US Division, we feel that it is important to clarify rules around ownership of league spots within the Rainbow Six Circuit and Promotion/Relegation matches in the US Division.
According to the Global Rule Book, the owner of the competition spot within the Rainbow Six Circuit is the Organization. With the Organization departing the league, the former eUnited roster is ineligible to compete within the US Division, but remain available to be picked up as free agents.
The departure of a team from the US Division automatically places them last place within the division. As a result, Tempo Storm advances to 7th place. The normally-played relegation match between the 8th placed US Division team and the 1st placed US Challenger League team is not necessary. We are engaging with the US Challenger League team RentFree on requirements to advance into the US Division.
This decision comes after eUnited decided to leave the Rainbow Six Siege scene, as it was becoming financially unviable for them, partly due to the COVID-19 crisis. This led the eUnited roster to become ineligible to play in the next season, despite qualifying for it.
This is the exact opposite of other esports circuits like Rocket League Championship Series, where if an org decides to leave, the players can still continue to play together, while keeping their spots.
And the most disappointing part is that the eUnited team was not even informed about his decision prior to its public announcement via Twitter. Despite sending multiple emails to “very high positions” in Ubisoft, eUnited’s head coach Matthew “meepeY” Sharples received almost no communication, except for a vague “we can’t tell you, we’ll tell you soon” message.
This raised a lot of questions in the Siege community, as it seems Ubisoft is still failing to improve their connections and transparency with the professional teams and players.
Rainbow Six Esports Director Wei Yue also added saying that he was disappointed with how this announcement was handled with the eUnited squad; however did not disagree with the decision itself.
It is still unclear right now, who will be taking the eighth US Division spot for 2021. The 1st placed US Challenger league team, RentFree still needs to find an organization to fill the 8th spot. But if the ex-eUnited roster is now available as free agents maybe they can be picked up again by an org. And as they have more experience in the US Div. they might gain an edge over the RentFree roster. But we’ll have to wait and see how that unfolds in the future.
