Numerous teams vie incessantly to secure a spot in any Major and for TT to reach one less than a year in existence is extraordinary. After their massive achievement, TT was unexpectedly invited to ESL One Mumbai after J.Storm withdrew due to scheduling conflicts. Sensing a chance to prepare for Paris, TT accepted the invitation to compete in Mumbai. In the group stage, TT went smooth sailing by topping their group over Natus Vincere, TNC Predator, and compLexity Gaming. Subsequently, they were placed in the upper bracket semifinals against Mineski, a team from Southeast Asia, who then proceeded to sweep them in two games, bringing them down to the lower bracket. For their next series, they lost again, this time to TNC Predator in another sweep. The North Americans, who originally wanted to have a good finish in the lead-up to Paris, was instead forced to swallow the bitter pill of disappointment over their early exit.
Immediately after Mumbai, TT’s leaders convened over what went wrong in their games. Perhaps there was poor synergy that signaled their underperformance. Whatever actually happened among them in their talks will maybe never see the light of day due to the privacy concerning team matters. Regardless, TT, whose name would be changed to Bestcoast after they were acquired by the titular esports organization on May 1, was fraught with urgency. Something had to be done in order to hastily fix their core problems. Otherwise, they’ll be met with a rehash of humiliation in “The Happiest Place on Earth.” And so, after heavy consideration among three team members—Brax, EE, and ixmike88—they decided to release Gunnar and Newsham with only two weeks to spare before the start of the Disneyland Paris Major to the shock of many.
Heavy backlash ensued as a result of the move. People were outraged over the abrupt end of the tenures of Gunnar and Newsham in TT. Just as a considerable amount anger was gravitated towards the people that OK’d the switch, questions popped out over the entire ordeal. Why did a team who had a scarce amount of time in their hands decide to do the switch? Was the atmosphere so toxic that their integration was unfeasible? Was the trio that soulless in allowing this to happen?
Though the exact answers to these questions couldn’t be said, in the days after the notorious switch, the people involved provided their own perspective as to what happened. Right off the bat, EE let the world know what he thought of Gunnar as a person.
I don't dislike Gunnar
— EternaLEnVy (@EternaLEnVy1991) April 21, 2019
Gunnar himself said there was no beef between him and the three concerning Bestcoast members even after he was kicked again by one of them (EE). At the same time though, during an interview in ESL Mumbai after news broke of his exit, he said that EE might’ve not liked him during his time there. But most shockingly from his explanation was that everyone in the team, him and Newsham included, agreed to conduct the switch after the Paris event. Key word: after. Bestcoast could’ve waited until after the event to do it but they instead opted to switch immediately after their ESL exit. It seemed that they couldn’t withstand the prospect of faltering in France just like they did in Southern Asia.
Sammyboy applied his own weight to the subject by posting this tweet in regards to people defending EE’s behavior outside of the limelight.
Watching people defend EE on reddit without realizing how scummy he is behind the public eye xD coool
— Samuel Anderson (@SammyboyGG) April 20, 2019
Unlike Gunnar and Sammyboy’s hinting of a possible fracas, ixmike88 was frank when he was asked over the reaction of the move.
“Players quickly learn that they can’t afford to hold grudges. I don’t know if there ever was any real contempt, but the player pool is far too small to be petty,” ixmike88 said. “Players also grow and change over time so even if you’re playing with someone you vowed to never play with again, there’s a reasonable chance that they’ve changed and matured as a person since you last played with them.”
His rationale is based on the environment which views these moves as customary. The bottom line, in ixmike88’s case, is teams are competing to win. If they’re unwilling to address issues that curtail their progress, then why bother competing in the first place?
Conversely, scores of people interjected ixmike88’s reasoning with how poorly-timed it was done. Executing the switch of players before the start of an open qualifier is understandable, but doing it nearly two weeks away from an actual Major? Not only that but also denying that player’s family from watching them play on the main stage after they worked so hard to reach there? The aforementioned scenario may sound too outrageous for any fan to digest, but that’s exactly what happened to Gunnar when he heard the sudden news. The most heartbreaking out of all this is he didn’t do anything to get a ticket on his own since he thought he was going to play in the Major. Now, he’ll watch the event from his own home while his family is in vacation since their paid tickets were non-refundable.
Aside from the uproar of the fans towards the affected parties, people have turned their attention to Valve in relation to TT’s swap. Some have called for them to deny the move and force TT to remain with the same roster that qualified for Disneyland Paris. Others have elected to strip TT’s spot from the competition and hand it over to the next team that finished behind them in the closed qualifiers. In the end, according to Valve’s recently updated rules in the 2018-19 DPC, TT’s moves are legal since they can happen at any time until invites are handed out to teams for The International 2019. Nonetheless, teams were warned by Valve, for if they choose to change their roster before their sponsored events, they will be met with a deduction of 20% of their gained points from a tournament in correspondence to how many players are removed within that juncture.
But besides the fact, what about the rest of the players who are affected by these sudden switches. What about players like Gunnar and Newsham who now has to fend for themselves in looking for another team to continue their professional careers? Sure, the unforgiving nature of esports have made these swift practices commonplace, but if it continues to thrive in today’s society at the expense of hundreds of financially emaciated players, would that appeal to prospects of the Dota 2 sphere to pursue a career in the game?
Some people have proposed a particular solution that may take care of those affected players: the creation of a players-only union. It’ll work similarly like that of their traditional sports counterparts. Under operation, people believe, such inconspicuous movements will get banned. With enough support and funding, this hypothetical scenario may play itself out, but only time will tell if it’ll gain any traction from outside of their lobbyists.
Whether this fantasy will manifest into reality or not doesn’t matter much to Gunnar. All he wants to do is play Dota 2 and have a good career. And even though he was twice subjected to dismissals, he still possessed the will to support Bestcoast after what they did to him. Throughout their MDL Disneyland Paris Major participation, Gunnar streamed himself spectating the games from his home.
(Courtesy of Twitch)And with Gunnar and the rest of the world watching, Bestcoast expectedly staggered in the group stage. They finished last after losing their two designated games to Virtus.Pro and Keen Gaming. As a result, they were placed in the first round of the lower bracket, where they then faced complexity Gaming. In their brief best-of-1 series, they lost in 43 minutes, pitting them as one of the first group of teams eliminated from the competition.
Through it all, Gunnar has showed nothing but class in the midst of these personally cataclysmic events. One could only hope that the Dota pro scene could show the same to him.
