MCS LAN in Istanbul to refund teams' entry fees after former Liquid coach spills the beans about payment failure

The Turkish $10,000 LAN in Istanbul, Masters Championship Series, which was scheduled to take place between February 16-18, 2026, has its future in doubt following an official announcement from the tournament organiser (TO). The announcement came shortly after JiJieHao coach mithR had revealed that tournament was in doubt after the LAN venue had cancelled their contract with the tournament organiser due to non-payment from the TO.

The 16-team event had JiJieHao, Eternal Fire, Basement Boys and AaB as some of the confirmed teams. Out of 16, only 8 teams had signed up for the event, which had a pay-to-play format with $799 being the entry fee for the event. The tournament format was updated on February 6 after the TO announced that they were unable to finalise the initial 16 slots.

mithR had released a screenshot of his communication with the hotel, The Windsor Hotel, who were scheduled to host the teams. The conversation showed that the Windsor Hotel had cancelled the contract with the tournament organiser after they submitted fake payment receipts. With no payments being received by the venue, they cancelled the contract.

The tournament organiser then released a statement of their own stating that the they will be refunding the teams who have paid (2 had paid the entry fee in full while two teams had paid 50% of the entry fees). The tournament organiser said that due to failure of not being able to secure enough teams for VRS status, they were taking the step to refund the teams and would announce the further steps of the tournament in due time. The TO also said that 'some Turkish teams initially guaranteed' to take part and backed out last moment. They also stated that there was some 'irresponsible actions' from the staff of the computer club involved in the tournament.