The ESWC title defender Maciek 'av3k' Krzykowski's visa to the U.S. expired recently and the American embassy decided not to renew it. The Polish had all the necessary documentation, including his itinerary and an invitation from the ESWC but the application was denied anyway.

The Polish player was one of the main contenders to win the ESWC Grand Final after his third place finish at the Masters of Paris and win at GameGune in Bilbao this year. His absence is going to be a great loss to the ESWC tournament.

"The ESWC championships has lost one of the top contenders for the title," commented Bas Peeperkorn, the Serious Gaming manager. "Maciej was confident he could pull of a win again, and was deprived of this chance thanks to bureaucracy. Fortunately the team has in Cypher another contender for first place."

Av3k's absence means that there is only one player left in Group G after Nikita 'Nike' Amochaev dropped out as well. This means that the Groups will most likely be reshuffled.

SK Gaming has found out that in the case of there only being 24 Quake 3 players left, the ESWC staff will most likely restructure the event. In such a scenario there would be four groups of six players in the first group stage with two players advancing to the second round from each group. The second stage would be comprised of two groups of four players and a four-man elimination bracket afterwards.

The ESWC is one dropout away from such a scenario.