The Major champions will not go to Moscow for EPICENTER 2018 because the players need to recover from a 'tough period', the organisation has announced.

With two back-to-back events and as many victories recently behind them, Astralis have decided to pull out of EPICENTER 2018 set to take place from October 22-28 in Moscow, Russia.

According to a Twitter post, the team feels 'forced to give the players time to recover' after it won the FACEIT Major as well as BLAST Pro Series Istanbul 2018 without practicing between the two events because of their proximity.

Astralis will take time off after winning the Major and BLAST Pro Istanbul

The Major champions have adopted a policy of skipping several bigger events to reduce travel time and improve preparation, a policy that the team's coach, Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen expanded on when we interviewed him at ESL One Cologne in July.

With Astralis pulling out of EPICENTER 2018, the team list for the event looks as follows:

Natus Vincere
Liquid
Invite #5
Wild card qualifier #2FaZe
TBA
Wild card qualifier #1
Wild card rankingLiquid #3 Nick 'nitr0' CannellaKeith 'NAF' MarkovicJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEpitacio 'TACO' de MeloRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken FaZe #6 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenOlof 'olofmeister' KajbjerLadislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsNikola 'NiKo' KovačHåvard 'rain' Nygaard Danny 'zonic' Sørensen Age: 32 Team: AstralisC Astralis #1 Andreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethPeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenLukas 'gla1ve' RossanderNicolai 'device' ReedtzEmil 'Magisk' Reif Natus Vincere #2 Ioann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoEgor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' Sharipov