B8 Esports has received an invitation to the tier-1 tournament FISSURE Playground #1, which will take place from July 15 to 20 in Belgrade, Serbia. Despite the high level of the tournament and the significant points in the Valve Ranking System (VRS), the organization has openly expressed doubts — the tournament is supported by the Russian bookmaker BetBoom.

FISSURE Playground #1 is a new tournament from the organizers of the BetBoom Dacha series. The tournament is backed by FISSURE, a company founded in 2022 in Yerevan and later relocated to Belgrade. Despite its Serbian registration, the company's management team consists of Russian nationals. FISSURE also handles the official broadcast of its tournaments in Russian.

Participation in the tournament has multiple aspects. On one hand, there are VRS points, which directly affect invitations to future tier-1 tournaments. On the other hand, there are reputational risks and the association with a Russian sponsor. If B8 decides not to participate, they will lose valuable points and risk falling out of the pool for direct invitations, which could undermine all the team's achievements over the past six months.

Understanding the importance of the decision, the organization launched an open vote on its Telegram channel. Fans were offered three options: Play, Don't Play, or Support any decision you make. At the time of publication, the option "Play" had 55 percent of the votes. 

On June 3, B8 will play their first match at the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. They will face off against Imperial, with the match starting at 18:15 CEST. The match will be in a BO1 format. You can follow the news, schedule, and progress of the tournament via this link.