Almost exactly a year after they joined Rainbow Six esports with the acquisition of the 2Faced roster, Tempo Storm has opted to leave the competitive scene. The org will however aim to sell on its NAL licence meaning the roster may be able to keep their place in the league, unlike the eUnited lineup.
After signing the R6 streamer and ex-pro of Steven "Snake_Nade" White earlier that year, Tempo Storm picked up the 2Faced roster, which had just finished Season 10 of the Challenger League as runners-up before taking Rogue down in a shock relegation victory.
Over the following months, this roster fell to the Soniqs in the first round of the 2019 US Nationals Finals before being knocked out of the Six Invitational qualifiers by the two Challenger League lineups of the Soniqs and ex-Rise Nation. Despite these results, a seventh-place finish during the first half of Season 11 of the Pro League was upgraded to a fifth-place finish after Mark "MarkTheShark" Arismendez replaced Xavier "Filthy" Garcia in March, positioning themselves as a promising team ahead of the NA League kick-off.
Tempo Storm ahead of the 2019 US Nationals.
By the time the NAL kicked off in June, the Italian import of Manuel "Sloppy" Malfer had also joined the team, while Mark had been promoted to a full-time position. After a rough introduction against TSM and Soniqs, the team qualified for the NA Major Qualifiers thanks to two 2-0 victories over eUnited and Disrupt Gaming, only to finish the season down in seventh place in NA after losing to both Soniqs and Mirage during this event.
Stage 2 saw Sloppy to sent back home to be replaced by Jarvis, with the coaches of Robert "RaMz" Rockhill and Matt Wolf joining to aid the roster further. This clearly did not work out. After beating Oxygen Esports 2-1 in their opening game, Tempo lost four straight games to end the stage in last place and be pushed into the relegation zone.
While eUnited leaving the scene pushed them up to the seventh place and saved them from relegation, the possible five-month break till their next game has now led the organisation to drop its roster, also prior to its R6Share skin release.
RaMz working as an analyst at the USN 2019 event prior to joining the Tempo Storm staff.
Tempo Storm likely came to this decision due to the same reason eUnited did -- the lack of upcoming games and coverage. Other than the Six Invitational qualifiers in December, which they are frankly unlikely to win, the team has no official matches till the 2021 season of the NAL kicks off in five months time. Furthermore, while the league was planned to be in a LAN environment, this was canceled due to the coronavirus epidemic limiting the amount of content and coverage produced around their team.
Unlike prior cases, however, Tempo Storm has stated that they will search for a replacement org to acquire the NAL license and Ubisoft has given the time to do so. Should both parties be unable to find a replacement the license will revert to Ubisoft and the ex-tempo lose their NAL spot as what happened to eUnited.
Read more about the R6 Esports licensing rules and why this happens in our handy explainer article here.
A statement by @R6EsportsNA
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