Just days before the start of the Six Invitational 2021, Virtus.Pro has been disqualified from the tournament after two of the team members tested positive for COVID-19.
R6 Esports announced this unfortunate news on their official Twitter page, mentioning that Virtus.Pro‘s captain Alan “Rask” Ali and their analyst Andrey “Andreezy” Baviyan were the ones who got infected.
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With only 6 members per team allowed to travel to Paris, the Russian team will therefore be unable to participate in the biggest Rainbow Six Siege tournament, which is set to start on May 11th.
This makes VP the second team to be removed from this year’s Invitationals, after the initial departure of the Australian team of Wildcard Gaming, who couldn’t attend due to the strict travel restrictions.
As a result, Group B has now been knocked down to only eight teams: TSM, SSG, Oxygen, Parabellum, Giants, MKERS, MIBR, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. And to maintain the competitive integrity, Ubisoft will be slightly adjusting the format.
For Group A, the top 9 teams will move forward from the initial stage, with the bottom team getting eliminated. But for Group B, only the top 7 teams will advance to the next stage. Therefore, there will have to be a match with two teams from Group A in the lower brackets.
Virtus.Pro, who qualified for this tournament by earning 660 SI points, will now be compensated with 1% of the prize pool (US$30,000), equivalent to the winnings for the teams that ended on the 19th and 20th place in the final standings.
The Six Invitational 2021 “May Edition” will be live from May 11th to May 23rd, and the playoffs will take place in Palais Brongniart, a historical venue in Paris.
