Aurora and magic have booked their spots at StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026, making their way through the Europe closed qualifier to join the likes of Vitality and FURIA at the $500,000 LAN event in September.
magic enjoyed a flawless run through the qualifier, taking down Walczaki and Gentle Mates twice without dropping a map to set up a battle with Ninjas in Pyjamas for qualification.
The Russian side benefited from a stellar performance by former PARIVISION rifler Andrey "AW" Anisimov in their qualification bout with Ninjas in Pyjamas, sealing the deal in two maps. The victory sees magic build upon their impressive end to the previous season, which saw them bag top-four at PGL Astana and second at Stake Ranked Episode 2.
Ninjas in Pyjamas meanwhile will be left ruing a day which saw two different LAN berths slip through their fingers, as earlier in the day they were defeated by paiN to miss out on a BLAST Bounty Season 2 LAN finals spot.
Meanwhile a newly-revamped Aurora side had to battle through a slightly more turbulent qualifier campaign, dropping maps to K27 and Nemesis along their way to a qualification match with HOTU.
HOTU put up stiff resistance in the all-important final qualifier match, taking Aurora to all 24 rounds on Cache before defeating them on Anubis to send the series to a decider. There, Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş, Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalçın and Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo all stepped up in emphatic fashion to book a LAN spot for their team.
The win sees Aurora bounce back from a disappointing debut defeat by FOKUS in BLAST Bounty Season 2.
With the conclusion of the Europe closed qualifier, six of the eight teams set to compete at StarLadder StarSeries Fall are now known, with two left to be decided. Those two teams will come from the North America and South America closed qualifiers, which are set to run July 28-August 2.
The team list for StarLadder StarSeries Fall is as follows:
- Vitality
- FURIA
- Natus Vincere
- North America qualifier
- Aurora
- MOUZ
- magic
- South America qualifier