Less than a month after its investors backed out, Team Ember has sold its League Challenger Series spot to Team Nova, sources close to both organizations tell ESPN. The sale has been verbally agreed to by both parties and will be finalized in the coming weeks.
That spot will automatically gain the new Nova team entry to the North American Challenger Series. Ember failed to qualify for the League Championship Series after falling to Team Dragon Knights in the NACS semifinals.
This will be Team Nova's second foray into the League of Legends scene, with its first occurring just over a month ago. The team is owned by Flood Gaming, an esports-centric talent agency focused on representing brands and streamers. The organization was formerly located in Las Vegas. Its owner and founder is David Goldberg, formerly of insurance company American International Group (AIG) and JP Morgan Chase & Co.
"I was in the middle of conducting a search for a new role, when Flood's lead investor, who I've known for over 10 years, approached me with an idea to build a business within the esports space," Goldberg told Inc. in an interview last year about Flood Gaming. "The original idea was for me to operate the business until I found my next job in finance (and then hire someone else to run it). But after several months of working on it, I decided it was the right time in my life to take a risk (and also a break from the financial sector)."
The original Nova team consisted of European top laner Olof "Flaxxish" Medin, Ember jungler Juan "Contractz" Arturo Garcia, Enemy mid laner Michael "Wolfe" Taylor, former Also Known As AD carry Samuel "Rikara" Oh, and former Ember support William "Stunt" Chen.
While the roster for the new team has yet to be finalized, sources suggest that Contractz, Rikara and Stunt will all be involved. As for Flaxxish, he announced on Twitter that he had been released by the organization because of its new venture:
Not contracted anymore, got my P1 5 year visa. Open for any offers
- OLOF (@flaxxish) April 18, 2016
Long story LOL but in short investors pulled out or well they bought another team and at first i was gonna be in it then they decided not to
- OLOF (@flaxxish) April 18, 2016
Team Ember first entered financial straits after its investors, a group by the name of Signia Venture Partners, dropped the funding for the project. That led the team to drop all of its players, except for Contractz, on March 21, as reported by the Daily Dot. It then began to look for interested buyers in the Challenger spot.
The new Nova team will join Team Dignitas, Team Dragon Knights and Team Liquid Academy, each which requalified for the series through the 2016 Spring League Championship Series promotion tournament or through its placement in the Challenger split beforehand. Rounding out the series will be two teams that make it via a qualifier for the spots currently held by Dream Team and Enemy, which is also looking to sell its spot, as reported by ESPN.