Since it's inception during the SC2 beta, VT Gaming has been dedicated to improving e-sports inside and outside the StarCraft community. In a year's time we've come a long way, building an integrated network of gaming teams and sites who share in our vision to change the way gamers approach e-sports and how e-sports, and gaming as a whole, is perceived by the world. Our ultimate goal is to push competitive gaming into the mainstream and make it more accessible to the general public.
Simultaneously, companies like Justin.TV, IGN, and MLG have taken notice of the StarCraft community and pushed the competitive scene forward in a way most of us could have never imagined outside of Korea. We feel that their approach, both in effort and professionalism, should be matched by teams and players so that competitive gaming can keep moving forward in the West. Perhaps to a point where it can one day stand alongside any professional sports league in the world.
To support that, VTG Network has set out to create a new type of StarCraft 2 team...
Reign
A team dedicated to the most serious and motivated players in StarCraft 2. Following the Korean model, Team Reign will be placed in a pro team house in the San Francisco Bay Area under VT Gaming LLC. The house will not only accommodate Team Reign, but provide unique opportunities to players from other teams around the world to come train. It is scheduled to open later this year.
The Team
Brian “Spades” Francis
One of the visionaries behind Team Reign, Spades has been invested in competitive gaming since StarCraft 1. After graduating from The University of Central Florida, Spades set out to become a full-time professional gamer. He is a regular winner of online series, such as Go4SC2 and CraftCup. He has cashed in half of the VT Gaming Open Series, and was invited to the IGN Pro League Season 1. He is one of the few players to make it through the MLG Open Bracket more than once.
In January of this year, Spades travelled to Korea to play in the Code A qualifiers. While there, he trained in the MVP and IM pro houses with some of the best players in the world.
Jonathan “KiWiKaKi” Garneau
Known as one of Canada's best WarCraft 3 players during the lifespan of the game, Kiwikaki has made professional gaming his career. Playing StarCraft 2 full-time, he's seen repeated success with his creative and cunning playstyle. Nicknamed the “Mad Scientist Protoss," Kiwikaki has collected over $10,000 in StarCraft 2 prize winnings. He has finished 2nd at two MLG tournaments, the IGN Pro League Season 1, and placed in the top ten of all but one MLG tournament.
Kiwikaki has also travelled to Korea for Code A qualifiers and can currently be seen playing in the NASL.
Paul-David “SLush” Pagé
Perhaps one of the most underrated players in StarCraft 2, SLush is often only discussed in the shadows of his former teammates from Root Gaming. Despite this, SLush's tournament accomplishments are impressive, finishing in the top 12 at every MLG, including a recent finish in 5th at MLG Columbus.
SLush's history as a competitive gamer is split between Counter-Strike and StarCraft: Brood War, playing in Canadian-based teams Nameless and X'Ds, respectively.
Jeon “Phoenix” Young Sik
Still commonly referred to as “PhoenixWerra”, Phoenix became famous in the StarCraft community for streaming games on the North American server from his home in Korea. Though he hasn’t played much in the GSL, he has trained for many months in the houses of former pro team Werra and team MVP. Since that time Phoenix has been anxious to move to the United States and is joining Reign to get that chance.
Josué “Fayth” Sauvageau
Another veteran of Root Gaming, Fayth maintains careers in both StarCraft 2 and professional poker. He was renowned in StarCraft: Brood War as a member of the legendary team pG and was arguably one of the greatest players in Canada at that time. Fayth’s biggest accomplishment is finishing 2nd at LAN ETS.
Captain Team Reign, Brian “Spades” Francis:
Reign is the culmination of everything I would ever want in a professional gaming team. During my 3 month stay in Korea, i got a first person view of how the Korean teams operate. I realized although the Korean method for training produces the best results, they were lacking something; A professional business approach. The goal of Reign is to fuse the structured professional training regimen of Korea, and couple it with the promotional machine of western E-Sports. The long-term goal is to create salaried professionals who become celebrities in the field of professional gaming. It is our belief that with our business ventures as well as our professional approach we can have players making a very comfortable living, as well as promoting Reign and themselves as a brand. I am very confident with the team we have assembled, and i look forward to taking the first steps in bringing the idea of a professional gaming organization to a whole new level.
VT Gaming President, Frank “Mirhi” Fields:
Reign represents a different business approach than what I have done so far at VT Gaming. It was truly a team effort to assemble this group of talented and motivated players, but I have done this for many reasons, the foremost is professionalism and accountability. I believe these players represent a real chance to take our industry to another level. Plans for the team house are underway and we are all extremely excited to get started!
Team Reign Lineup: Spades KiWiKaKi SLush Phoenix Fayth TBD TBD
It appears they're looking for 2 other members, perhaps they should try and get rain. He want's to join a foreign team, and the house setup will be one he's familiar with, it would also give them a second terran for spades to work with.
Oh wow, didn't realise it was Phoenix from Werra when I first clicked this. That's a pretty awesome pickup! Good luck to them and I hope Phoenix enjoys it :>
Reign.Rain xD You guys should definitely get rain though! Seeing as you have Phoenix there he can speak korean with Rain so you guys can communicate well! :D
What does this mean for the players formerly on VT Gaming but not on Team Reign? Meaning Azz, Future, giX, Pokebunny, Whiplash, etc. Is VT planning on supporting both squads?
At least these guys have a respectable roster, unlike that 4Kings revival business going on.
I suppose I could edit this for clarity since it sounded really bitchy. I just had a lot of respect for the 4Kings organization from the WC3 days, and their SC2 roster just felt underwhelming in comparison to how great I remember 4Kings. User was warned for this post
On June 15 2011 10:48 p4NDemik wrote: What does this mean for the players formerly on VT Gaming but not on Team Reign? Meaning Azz, Future, giX, Pokebunny, Whiplash, etc. Is VT planning on supporting both squads?
I'm guessing that they will, but it'll work like a A-team B-team type system, i could be totally wrong though.
That's awesome, I'm really glad to see Kiwikaki and Slush stayed together, and I can't wait to see the result of this, and see if/when other teams are gonna do the same!
I'm really happy for all of you guys, REIGN HWAITING!
On June 15 2011 10:48 p4NDemik wrote: What does this mean for the players formerly on VT Gaming but not on Team Reign? Meaning Azz, Future, giX, Pokebunny, Whiplash, etc. Is VT planning on supporting both squads?
I'm guessing that they will, but it'll work like a A-team B-team type system, i could be totally wrong though.
Very excited for a pro-house in America, especially one with Slush and Kiwi. I can't wait to see what some discipline and great practice partners will produce, gl Reign!
The OP says he never entered GSL, but sasn't phoenix in GSL2? I particularly remember him playing SangHo in one of the first games that introduced heavy phoenix harrass against zerg.
On June 15 2011 10:57 ffadicted wrote: The OP says he never entered GSL, but sasn't phoenix in GSL2? I particularly remember him playing SangHo in one of the first games that introduced heavy phoenix harrass against zerg.
The logo could use some work, seems like a fast photoshop. Not criticizing Reign but first impressions count Good luck and i hope you gather some really strong players in your roster to create a heavy impact on nearby tourneys.
Definitely a great idea; but as many have said - the "Korean model" isn't sticking people in a progamer house and saying "okay now you live together, you will be awesome"
It's having a coach who will establish practice regimes, strategies etc + the dedication from the players to want to play those 10+ hours a day to win tournaments. I hope this works out, i really do - at the end of the day it comes down to the players and their dedication
Hmm... I never expected this ever, but gratz to all those guys, especially the ROOT trio + phoenix. I've seen Phoenix play and he looks like he could be a beast in the Western scene. Hopefully these guys improve massively.
Wonder who their new terran and and the 7th player will be.
On June 15 2011 11:06 Loxley wrote: The logo could use some work, seems like a fast photoshop. Not criticizing Reign but first impressions count Good luck and i hope you gather some really strong players in your roster to create a heavy impact on nearby tourneys.
It's just a banner, official logo will be released soon.
The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
On June 15 2011 11:04 GenoZStriker wrote: What happened to the old VT? Did they disband?
No. They are now the B-Team. The only person worthy of being moved onto the "A-Team" was Spades.
Sure thing buddy.
Azz are you angry at the decision? Seems like B team members are a little angry -- is there some kind of inner-team friction or are you all proud of Spades/Reign?
Rain would be a perfect fit imho. Phoenix is there so the language barrier is less obvious. He's a Terran and there is only one Terran so far. He's been in a pro gaming house and could possibly help structure their team house, and provide some leadership since he is a veteran of the GSL.
On June 15 2011 10:42 gillon wrote: Wow, didn't see that one coming. Cool stuff.
Agreed, never saw this coming.
I am so exited for everyone! Good luck guys!
Spades: <3 Please take care of this team and I hope you all come back to Florida for MLG Orlando so that I can finally meet you Lake Claire Fall BTW! :D
Kiwi: I am glad to see that you declined to join CoL. in order to do this! Great move! Looking forward to you improving tons (not like you suck anyways <3)
Slush: Same thing mate. Great move and congratz! You are one of my favorite Zerg players so far. I do know who you are, not like some others.
Phoenix: Can you please bring Rain w/ you? Hope you have great success dude!
Fayth: GL mate! Hope you have great success in this new team!
Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
Wow, awesome! As already stated a million times, Reign.Rain should happen Although what other players are free agents/willing to leave a team and would be good/committed enough to do this?
On June 15 2011 11:08 Bluft wrote: guys theres no A team and B Team VT and Reign are 2 diferent TEAMS
You're incorrect. MrBitter already said you could describe the two as an A and B team.
Both Exia and MrBitter are correct. Reign and VT will be two seperate entities, but will function in much the same way an A team and a B team would work, or at least this is what I have been led to understand. Seeing as how all three of us are a part of VT, should probably take what we say as truth unless someone like Mirhi corrects us.
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Yes, but there were various reasons that other players were not given the opportunity, not all of them viewable to the public. Personally my obvious issue is that I'm 15 and can't live in a pro house for another two years.
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
lol
Apparently MrBitter says a lot...
no kidding.. he's also screaming like a little girl on Sheth's stream atm. pretty annoying =x
Glad another team was created and Kiwi and Slush didn't just get absorbed into an existing team. More teams is always good to grow talent and if they disband later at least they tried. GL to all involved.
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Yes, but there were various reasons that other players were not given the opportunity, not all of them viewable to the public. Personally my obvious issue is that I'm 15 and can't live in a pro house for another two years.
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Yes, but there were various reasons that other players were not given the opportunity, not all of them viewable to the public. Personally my obvious issue is that I'm 15 and can't live in a pro house for another two years.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up! Keep practicing hard so they recognize you as A-Team material in a of couple years
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
Perhaps KiWi didn't want to be captain. He seems to be a "lone-wolf" from the way drewbie/others talk about him
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Yes, but there were various reasons that other players were not given the opportunity, not all of them viewable to the public. Personally my obvious issue is that I'm 15 and can't live in a pro house for another two years.
Holy fuck man. If you're already this good at 15 just wait until you're older. jesus christ i'm 16 and only in plat -.- fml
On June 15 2011 11:12 Pokebunny wrote: The relationship between VT and Reign as well as the state of VT is complicated and still half of us don't know what exactly will happen, but as of now, the VT team is basically exactly what it was before, except that Spades is no longer with us. The players were not chosen based entirely on skill, and it's not like they decided that spades was the only good player on the team.
MrBitter did just say Spades "was the only fortunate one to move up".
Yes, but there were various reasons that other players were not given the opportunity, not all of them viewable to the public. Personally my obvious issue is that I'm 15 and can't live in a pro house for another two years.
Dude, you're 15? Fuck I'm old.
More like, "Fuck he's young!"
If it were up to me, we'd strap a keyboard to his chest and march the fucker to Korea. Alas... That would get me charged with all kinds of shit.
So glad to see Phoenix finally joining another team. He's a really good player imo, just never got a real opportunity to perform after all that drama in the Werra house.
Congrats to the other guys too, this should be a very good team. Also, where is everyone living?
On June 15 2011 11:28 thegamer wrote: I thought it said KiWiKaKi, SLush, Phoenix, Spades to Resign
Fuck, I did too at first.
After my brain caught up to my out of control heart and I realized what is REALLY going on, I am pleased and expectant of great results. Best of luck to everyone involved in this venture.
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
Phoenix is kOre on NA ladder. I believe that is correct? I was under the impression that Fayth was more of management for Root and i have not seen him play much? If anybody has information on tournaments or anything i would be interested to see it. Otherwise this looks exciting O.o
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
Nice to see a new team pop up! I'm excited to see how you guys will perform with these new training conditions, and also exactly how this new model you talk about will turn out . GL & HF!
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
very glad to see what slush and kiwikaki are up to and i just hope that this means slush will soon get back to streaming so i can get my zerg fix. i seem to miss the times catz (in fact has he streamed since root dissolved?) is online and as far as i can tell slush hasn't streamed since root dissolved either.
also really excited to be introduced to a possable new zerg favorite maybe well i'll give him the benefit of the doubt till he converts me.
On June 15 2011 11:53 magicallypuzzled wrote: very glad to see what slush and kiwikaki are up to and i just hope that this means slush will soon get back to streaming so i can get my zerg fix. i seem to miss the times catz (in fact has he streamed since root dissolved?) is online and as far as i can tell slush hasn't streamed since root dissolved either.
also really excited to be introduced to a possable new zerg favorite maybe well i'll give him the benefit of the doubt till he converts me.
to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
No, winning tournaments is, name a few you've won.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
You mean for VT more than NA E-Sports. This is the second time they've "remade" their teams.
that reminds me are slush and kiwikaki moving there? unless i am mistaken about where they live it seems like a long ways to go and more hassle than i was lead to believe kiwi and slush would want to go with.
and wow people need to seriusly stop trying to pick at any comment that might be bitter and trying to inflame everything. seems like instead they should just let a person let loose a little steam instead of jumping on and rubbing what ever sore part they can to inflame the conversation.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
I have no idea what you're saying, I'm pretty sure these people are "stars" because they've performed fairly well in the past.
This sounds like it's coming out of envy more than anything else.
On June 15 2011 11:53 magicallypuzzled wrote: very glad to see what slush and kiwikaki are up to and i just hope that this means slush will soon get back to streaming so i can get my zerg fix. i seem to miss the times catz (in fact has he streamed since root dissolved?) is online and as far as i can tell slush hasn't streamed since root dissolved either.
also really excited to be introduced to a possable new zerg favorite maybe well i'll give him the benefit of the doubt till he converts me.
Ahh so this is where Kiwikaki and Slush have gone. I like the idea of some foreign teams picking up the Korean progamer training model, should really bump up the competition.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
Would you disagree with this statement: KiWi and SLush are better than virtually any member of VT.
I would say KiWi, and to a lesser extent SLush, have a wonderful combination of skill and star power. It is certainly not just a case of "popularity contest" antics. KiWi and SLush have a place on any A-team in any NA/Euro team.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
No, winning tournaments is, name a few you've won.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
Would you disagree with this statement: KiWi and SLush are better than virtually any member of VT.
I would say KiWi, and to a lesser extent SLush, have a wonderful combination of skill and star power. It is certainly not just a case of "popularity contest" antics. KiWi and SLush have a place on any A-team in any NA/Euro team.
Also, his statement in general isn't too accurate in my opinion, it takes a fair combination of skill and personality or what not to attain "star power", so the term itself is pretty silly. There aren't that many players I can think of that get by on pure "star power" where skill isn't a consideration.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
No, winning tournaments is, name a few you've won.
what big tournaments has slush or spades won?
Winning tournaments is something not many people have considering the amount of time right now, but placing well in larger tournaments is a fair accomplishment, and Slush has some of the most consistent results in places like MLG. But yeah, I think a better way to put it would have been, "Getting results are, name yours".
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
No, winning tournaments is, name a few you've won.
what big tournaments has slush or spades won?
You hear about them all the time in tournament streams though, so they must be doing something right. How many times have you heard about VTPerfect in any tournament streams, I have heard 0.
Wow, I didn't expect a new team to be created, it would be funny to see ReignRain, as he wanted to join a foreign team, and I figure one with a salary, a team house, probably some open spots(also probably looking for another terran as they only have one), and some good players would be a pretty easy choice, especially with Phoenix there as he speaks korean, making it easier to integrate Rain into the rest of the team. Or Rain could just go for Liquid/FXO/the unknown GSTL team with ThorZain/NaNiwa as they are in korea.
Pretty interesting news; definite congratulations to everyone involved. I have a few suggestions though...and please take my advice.
Despite how much personal money you have, or how rich people are that involved in the organization. PLEASE understand; that everyone gets tired of that eventually. You need to find a way to actually make money, or get sponsors in order to remain sustainable. Sure, this is great news for now but make smart decisions so you aren't just grasping at 15 minutes of fame.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
No, winning tournaments is, name a few you've won.
what big tournaments has slush or spades won?
You hear about them all the time in tournament streams though, so they must be doing something right. How many times have you heard about VTPerfect in any tournament streams, I have heard 0.
You still didnt answer the question lol..
But for the new team, pretty curious for the next 2 TBDs
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
Would you disagree with this statement: KiWi and SLush are better than virtually any member of VT.
I would say KiWi, and to a lesser extent SLush, have a wonderful combination of skill and star power. It is certainly not just a case of "popularity contest" antics. KiWi and SLush have a place on any A-team in any NA/Euro team.
seriuosly guys would you just stop being class a jerks? that goes for everyone not just the one i quoted. is there really any reason to be this antagonistic even if vtperfect and vt as a whole might well be worse than kiwi or slush is there any reason to respond to his post saying as much?
I'm happy for the ex-ROOT members, since i'll proly be a fan of all ROOT members no matter what, but i don't know how i feel about this team, I can't feel they mojo
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
He is a poker player does not play sc2 seriously, don't why he is in the team.
On June 15 2011 12:14 KeyHunt wrote: Pretty interesting news; definite congratulations to everyone involved. I have a few suggestions though...and please take my advice.
Despite how much personal money you have, or how rich people are that involved in the organization. PLEASE understand; that everyone gets tired of that eventually. You need to find a way to actually make money, or get sponsors in order to remain sustainable. Sure, this is great news for now but make smart decisions so you aren't just grasping at 15 minutes of fame.
Hey Curt its me Exia sup bro we are taking you advice even before :D haha <3
On June 15 2011 12:03 VTPerfect wrote: to clarify im not bitter about VT's business decision. I'm just bitter than at least in top level NA esport, starpower is the single most important aspect of a progamer.
Would you disagree with this statement: KiWi and SLush are better than virtually any member of VT.
I would say KiWi, and to a lesser extent SLush, have a wonderful combination of skill and star power. It is certainly not just a case of "popularity contest" antics. KiWi and SLush have a place on any A-team in any NA/Euro team.
seriuosly guys would you just stop being class a jerks? that goes for everyone not just the one i quoted. is there really any reason to be this antagonistic even if vtperfect and vt as a whole might well be worse than kiwi or slush is there any reason to respond to his post saying as much?
I have to agree, let's not crucify the guy, but it was pretty fucking stupid to come into a thread announcing what is apparently your Team's new A-Team and start talking bitterly about how starpower is worth more than skill.
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
He is a poker player does not play sc2 seriously, don't why he is in the team.
He could still perform on a comparable level to the rest of the current VT roster and made it farther than most of them at the most recent MLG(barring Pokebunny and Spades).
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
Fayth is a pretty decent SC2 player, nothing too spectacular, but he's an awesome poker player. :D
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
He is a poker player does not play sc2 seriously, don't why he is in the team.
that's what i'm questioning, i follow the sc2 scene rather religiously, and if you dont hear anything about someone at all, that means they are almost guarenteed not playing. (being a good poker player has ZERO relevance on if your a good starcraft player or not.) which means they are behind. and thus cant really compete. seems like this team is just gonna stick to solo tourneys for a long time unless 2-3 more great players come on board.
this should end up well for kiwi and SLush no matter what though. if the team prospers, they get credit for being on borad the start of a great team, if it doesnt. they could leave and do something else since they dont appear to be financially dependant on a team for results.
Of all the teams that could pick Kiwikaki and Slush (and Fayth, didn't think he'd keep playing SC2 considering he's still much into poker), I never expected them to get into a new team. And from VTG, nonetheless. Well, the lineup looks sick, Spades is a pretty awesome player, I remember bout PhoenixWerra though I haven't seen him playing much lately. This looks like quite a promising team actually...
I'm a pretty crazy (ex) ROOT fan, and would like to congratulate Fayth, Kiwi and Slush on their new home! To be honest with you, I've only been watching Pheonix (kOre) for a couple of weeks now, but I love the guy! Really great player to watch.
Team is looking very well rounded thus far. Wish them all the best in the future!
On June 15 2011 12:27 BrahCJ wrote: I'm a pretty crazy (ex) ROOT fan, and would like to congratulate Fayth, Kiwi and Slush on their new home! To be honest with you, I've only been watching Pheonix (kOre) for a couple of weeks now, but I love the guy! Really great player to watch.
Team is looking very well rounded thus far. Wish them all the best in the future!
could you give a link where i could find some games for him i remember windering who he was and trying to find some. I didnt look too hard (basically just on youtube) and i didnt find any but know that he's on the same team as slush i want to learn more about him.
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
Wow for Kiwi and slush. But most noteably for me is Phoenix. I remember back in the day when starcraft came out to retail before beta and I discovered replays. I remember downloading some of Phoenixs replays along with ret and other well known players. But most notably for me was phoenixs style at the time. He was the first player that made my jaw drop. In one of his replays he did a simple zergling flank while ramming roaches in the front, a perfect surround, completly and utterly destroying the push. It was the first time I'd ever seen this ever and phoenix won a special place in my heart
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
heh yea I think people don't give you enough credit, but I think it's fair to say you're a bit of a wild card ^^
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
its not a personal attack =( (although i guess it does seem this way) just cant see much about you! prove me wrong though! =)
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
Probably because we can't see you true skills when its being with covered by thousands of $100 dollar bills.
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
heh yea I think people don't give you enough credit, but I think it's fair to say you're a bit of a wild card ^^
i dont have any doubt about me being worse than kiwi, not that much worse than slush, just slightly
but to say i cant compete with azz, whiplash or you, meh cmon lol T_T
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
First off, congrats to the line up so far. i think the korean mentality will do good for players here in the NA, and im super excited for Kiwi, Fayth, and SLush. I wasnt a follower of BW, but from ive seen in this thread, Pheonix should be an awesome addition.
Cant wait to see this team in action.
pull a SlayerS and all-kill the Established teams.... especially CoL :< just be nice to liquid and fxo :DD
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
heh yea I think people don't give you enough credit, but I think it's fair to say you're a bit of a wild card ^^
i dont have any doubt about me being worse than kiwi, not that much worse than slush, just slightly but to say i cant compete with azz, whiplash or you, meh cmon lol T_T
be fair Whiplash, is starting to turn out nicely if he keeps it up. i dont paticaularly follow him, but his mechanics are starting to really get strong. decent decision making too, always make for good games.
I'm thinking this is the team rain was talking about joining.
Epic with the EG house and now Reign stepping it up and getting serious about chatching up to the koreans there can't be anything but epicness. Can't wait to see You guys tearing it up.
Bitter said today that kiwikaki and slush wasn't coming to vt :p
On June 15 2011 12:51 two.watup wrote: I didn't even know fayth was on root (other than his tl name). He wasn't on their liquipedia roster either: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Root_Gaming.
I think after entering a single tournament more people might see how good (or bad ) he is.
I always thought Fayth was involved in ROOT's management, and simply played at a high level for fun. I'm surprised to see him on a selective team... within a team. Either way this is very exciting and surprising news. I wonder if we will see Rain join for obvious reasons that many people mentioned.
wow. very hush-hush on this...AND i like! too many things are extremely hyped up and pre-pre announced. so not only is this a surprise but it's awesome and atleast i find it's even more awesome because it was a surprise -Sorry for run-ons- : (
Much love for this team guys, Phoenix and Slush watch you guys stream a lot and love the games. Kiwi, Fayth and Spades I know are all great and look forward to seeing the great things this team will accomplish!
Pheonix hasn't been seen much but he has been top 10 NA consistently on his kOre account. I have yet to become a fan of spades but the team still is shaping up nicely. I can't wait to see what else they have in store!
Their team logo has a fresh new look to it. They will stand out in a crowd.
So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
On June 15 2011 13:28 genius_man16 wrote: So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
Root already was acquired by coL so ROOT just doesn't exist anymore.
On June 15 2011 13:28 genius_man16 wrote: So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
On June 15 2011 13:28 genius_man16 wrote: So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
The rest of ROOT is on Complexity now rofl. You must be new here.
oh wow i have found some games by phoenix love his style it's really interesting, really really excited for this team my new favorite for sure complexity is my second. no suprise there as i was a huge root fan.
On June 15 2011 13:28 genius_man16 wrote: So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
Root already was acquired by coL so ROOT just doesn't exist anymore.
On June 15 2011 13:28 genius_man16 wrote: So I feel like they should really explain what is gonna happen with the rest of the VT roster, it seems a little weird for them to omit them completely in such a big announcement.
Also it sucks to be ROOT. All their good players are leaving, makes me wonder how long Catz and the others will stay with them. It seems like that team is destined to either be a 'stepping stone' team or if they will just slowly disintegrate.
The rest of ROOT is on Complexity now rofl. You must be new here.
Really dude? It happened yesterday, you need to pull the tree outta your ass bro.
nice!!!! I loook forward to this team !! i am already a fan sort, of cuz of Kiwikaki in it, now i just hope the last 2 spots are filled by some big names, i wish they could get whietra but he goes solo, but i hope its some solid players, would have wished thorzain joined them but oh well.
The goal of Reign is to fuse the structured professional training regimen of Korea, and couple it with the promotional machine of western E-Sports.
that is kinda of vague... is he talking about a jersey shore type of promotion for the gaming house? i wonder what the revenue source is. unless they picked up some big sponsors, i dont see how the team is sustainable.
The long-term goal is to create salaried professionals who become celebrities in the field of professional gaming.
does this mean that the current players are not salaried? Who's paying for a gaming house in San Francisco (fyi very expensive city to live in)?
i realize i sound like a hater, but this business model seems incredible. I do want to see it work though.
On June 15 2011 14:03 fire_brand wrote: so wat happened to VT? and where's pokebunny headed?
Only Poke can speak for Poke.
The team VT will still exist. All the players on the current roster will continue to be supported, barring someone leaving on their own accord or falling into ill-favor with the management. (At least, so far as I've been informed)
For all intensive purposes, Reign is a separate team. Its just funded by the same blanket organization as VT.
This whole thing is basically VT management saying "let's get serious about making a truly competitive house in North America" and doing everything in their power to follow through with that.
Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
^^ All that having been said, these are my words, and this is my understanding of the situation. Clearly I do not speak for VT management, or for any of the players involved other than myself.
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
This is a fair comparison, but its not quite that cut and dry.
The goal of "Reign" is to be the best team in the foreign scene, and, eventually, maybe even the world.
As what is essentially a subsidiary of "Reign", members of "VT" will have some limited access to the same resources (practice partners, replays, trips to the house) as "Reign", but the two organizations will still be separate entities.
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
This is a fair comparison, but its not quite that cut and dry.
The goal of "Reign" is to be the best team in the foreign scene, and, eventually, maybe even the world.
As what is essentially a subsidiary of "Reign", members of "VT" will have some limited access to the same resources (practice partners, replays, trips to the house) as "Reign", but the two organizations will still be separate entities.
So could a company sponsor Reign and not VT? Well I guess a sponsor could do whatever they want, but do you see a sponsor doing that, or will you think sponsors will do both teams?
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
This is a fair comparison, but its not quite that cut and dry.
The goal of "Reign" is to be the best team in the foreign scene, and, eventually, maybe even the world.
As what is essentially a subsidiary of "Reign", members of "VT" will have some limited access to the same resources (practice partners, replays, trips to the house) as "Reign", but the two organizations will still be separate entities.
So could a company sponsor Reign and not VT? Well I guess a sponsor could do whatever they want, but do you see a sponsor doing that, or will you think sponsors will do both teams?
all he said was VT members will have limited access to the same ressources, nothing to do with sponsors
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
This is a fair comparison, but its not quite that cut and dry.
The goal of "Reign" is to be the best team in the foreign scene, and, eventually, maybe even the world.
As what is essentially a subsidiary of "Reign", members of "VT" will have some limited access to the same resources (practice partners, replays, trips to the house) as "Reign", but the two organizations will still be separate entities.
So could a company sponsor Reign and not VT? Well I guess a sponsor could do whatever they want, but do you see a sponsor doing that, or will you think sponsors will do both teams?
Yes. At least, so far as I understand it.
Let's put it this way.
Team Liquid wears tiny OGS patches on their jerseys. No one is under the illusion that they are the same team. They are connected. They enjoy mutual respect between their organizations. They are separate.
This will be the case for VT and Reign.
edit: And for the record, its entirely possible that I'm speaking completely out of turn here. Mirhi and Exia are the two guys closest to this whole thing (And maybe Spades...). Sooner or later one of them will make a comment. That's where you guys will find all your concrete answers.
Since when has kiwi been called the "mad scientist protoss"? hahaha but this is very awesome! I hope to see this team succeed greatly in the future seeing as how my favorite player ever is on it RESPECT THE KIWI!
On June 15 2011 14:19 MrBitter wrote: Let's face it... for all the talent in the foreigner scene, there's not a single team that's taken a truly legit stab at running a top-tier house. This is a huge opportunity for everyone involved, and, hopefully, can serve as a standard for things to come from other teams in the future.
EG is doing it very soon. =)
So could you compare it to a team having an A team and B team? Not to downplay the "B teamers", but if the "A team" gets their own house and start playing SC2 very seriously, then they will inevitably become better with some time.
This is a fair comparison, but its not quite that cut and dry.
The goal of "Reign" is to be the best team in the foreign scene, and, eventually, maybe even the world.
As what is essentially a subsidiary of "Reign", members of "VT" will have some limited access to the same resources (practice partners, replays, trips to the house) as "Reign", but the two organizations will still be separate entities.
So could a company sponsor Reign and not VT? Well I guess a sponsor could do whatever they want, but do you see a sponsor doing that, or will you think sponsors will do both teams?
Yes. At least, so far as I understand it.
Let's put it this way.
Team Liquid wears tiny OGS patches on their jerseys. No one is under the illusion that they are the same team. They are connected. They enjoy mutual respect between their organizations. They are separate.
This will be the case for VT and Reign.
edit: And for the record, its entirely possible that I'm speaking completely out of turn here. Mirhi and Exia are the two guys closest to this whole thing (And maybe Spades...). Sooner or later one of them will make a comment. That's where you guys will find all your concrete answers.
Well thanks for being willing to explain... it is appreciated!
I'll be interested to see how they fund the house though in an expensive city.
The goal of Reign is to fuse the structured professional training regimen of Korea, and couple it with the promotional machine of western E-Sports.
that is kinda of vague... is he talking about a jersey shore type of promotion for the gaming house? i wonder what the revenue source is. unless they picked up some big sponsors, i dont see how the team is sustainable.
The long-term goal is to create salaried professionals who become celebrities in the field of professional gaming.
does this mean that the current players are not salaried? Who's paying for a gaming house in San Francisco (fyi very expensive city to live in)?
i realize i sound like a hater, but this business model seems incredible. I do want to see it work though.
Pretty sure Kiwi is given salary at least. I have no proof but it's a reasonable assumption to make as Drewbie said in the root-col thread that Kiwi demands a lot of money to join a team ( and he deserves it of course). That and he hates doing promotional stuff like what EG often makes its players do.
Which makes it very hard for me to understand the harsh criticism by VTPerfect earlier because Kiwi's starpower comes totally from his skill and playstyle and not due to his personality or other stuff outside the game. Slush is also another player who actually stayed under the radar from Root and the only reason he is so highly rated is again because of his results ( especially his phenomenal MLG colombus placing)
On June 15 2011 14:39 RAGEKalin wrote: thats just bad .. really bad, Kiwi should finally realized he spent almost an year in little a bit more then avarage team and now this..
On June 15 2011 14:45 fartdra wrote: let's be real for once in this thread, this team looks pretty weak. doubt they will accomplish much.
Kiwi can probably make some waves, and SlusH a few himself, but realistically i doubt we'll see much from Phoenix, Spades, or Fayth
You must not have seen Phoenix play much late beta/early release. He was such a strong zerg before the "incident". I am thrilled to see him back on a solid team.Phoenix Fighting!
I'm interested to see how Phoenix does. I've watched his stream a bit and seen other players hit him on ladder and he is definitely capable of smashing a lot of top NA players.
On June 15 2011 15:03 VTPerfect wrote: guess i learned my lesson about posting at all. i wasnt even talking about Reign or KiWiKaki or any other Reign player.
it certainly would be nice if people could just be nice to each other without any of what tournaments have you won lolol you suck. but people will be people and this is the internet so what can you do?
Good luck to you all, I hope to see great results from all the "team houses" plopping up. Working environment, dedication and wok ethics are 90% of success!
On June 15 2011 15:24 aZoX wrote: Why the hell is everybody talking about Rain, the guy is super bad and can hardly do other stuff then one base all-ins...
Would have loved to see Kiwi on a more reknowed team such as EG, TL, but we'll see...
You sir are an idiot. You don`t consistently get placed in Code S for being "super bad and hardly do other stuff"
Didn't even have a doubt in my mind that KiWiKaKi would join FXO before this, and now i've been proved utterly wrong. Well, the idea of following the Korean Practice Scheme sonds awesome to me. GL TEAM Reign and VB
On June 15 2011 15:16 zere wrote: I feel bad for posting this, and I can not really believe it myself, but it would make sense: I'm calling Torch and Rain.
Apart from my childish speculations: congrats to the players and the team, that sounds exciting. Please give us a house tour at some point
I would think Torch, but he's got a good thing going. He stuck with VT for so long, I figure he could if he wanted to.
As far as Rain, I think Rain is definitely going to be in.
Rain either left with an offer at hand
or
It's the perfect opportunity to pick him up-- although, he seems to be looking for a team that can sustain paying for his participation in foreign tournaments and pay him a salary near what he had in TSL.
On June 15 2011 15:16 zere wrote: I feel bad for posting this, and I can not really believe it myself, but it would make sense: I'm calling Torch and Rain.
Apart from my childish speculations: congrats to the players and the team, that sounds exciting. Please give us a house tour at some point
I would think Torch, but he's got a good thing going. He stuck with VT for so long, I figure he could if he wanted to.
As far as Rain, I think Rain is definitely going to be in.
Rain either left with an offer at hand
or
It's the perfect opportunity to pick him up-- although, he seems to be looking for a team that can sustain paying for his participation in foreign tournaments and pay him a salary near what he had in TSL.
Could be too expensive of a pick-up.
Just to clarify. Rain does not have a current offer. As it stand currently he is not joining Reign.
Also I don't see torch joining. Right now he has a place to live, he has a proteam, he also has a fulltime job with Gom. Would be rather pointless to leave Korea for a non korean pro team considering he would be risking so much.
dissapointing i thought they will join FXO to make foreigners look less bad in GSTL or to sixjax to create a force to be reckoned with. This way there is another second tier pro team. i dont want to sound too negative, so good luck, but really would have prefered some centralization of foreigner might
On June 15 2011 15:24 aZoX wrote: Why the hell is everybody talking about Rain, the guy is super bad and can hardly do other stuff then one base all-ins...
Would have loved to see Kiwi on a more reknowed team such as EG, TL, but we'll see...
You sir are an idiot. You don`t consistently get placed in Code S for being "super bad and hardly do other stuff"
You're probly still stucked in that gold league if you can't see how much that guy is bad.
P.S: Have you really thought for a second he left on his own ? He got kicked out man, no need for foreigners to grab the old dirty stuff
I'd shit bricks if they picked up Rain. I honestly NEVER thought we'd be seeing Koreans coming to American pro houses but it absolutely makes sense now seeing how many opportunities there are for monetary gains outside of the mecha.
On June 15 2011 15:24 aZoX wrote: Why the hell is everybody talking about Rain, the guy is super bad and can hardly do other stuff then one base all-ins...
Would have loved to see Kiwi on a more reknowed team such as EG, TL, but we'll see...
You sir are an idiot. You don`t consistently get placed in Code S for being "super bad and hardly do other stuff"
You're probly still stucked in that gold league if you can't see how much that guy is bad.
P.S: Have you really thought for a second he left on his own ? He got kicked out man, no need for foreigners to grab the old dirty stuff
On June 15 2011 16:13 Geo.Rion wrote: dissapointing i thought they will join FXO to make foreigners look less bad in GSTL or to sixjax to create a force to be reckoned with. This way there is another second tier pro team. i dont want to sound too negative, so good luck, but really would have prefered some centralization of foreigner might
I have to sign this. It's all reminding me of Lazarus Gaming, where you hear all about the players and plans, but always limited information on sponsors and money (A single backer). Plus, the situation with regular VT gaming is just confusing, i hope Pokebunny (and other promising players) leave for an another team.
No disrespect for the organization, but roots merger with complexity was a better deal than this.
Woah this is awesome, i could see them picking up rain would be crazy if he moved to the US to compete. I honestly think he would do quite well. I dont know if he would be willing to give up his spot in code s though, guess we will have to wait and see how he does this season.
Congratz to kiwi slush and the rest, Pheonixwerra moving to the states as well? awesome, he made it to the round of 32 in season 2 of the GSL i beleive.
from back in the day when they went to korea and gave interviews to artosis, you could see the difference between VT and FXO. no offense to VT and their "plans", but i honestly dont see any vision from them whatsoever and have very low expectations of their new pet project.
im also kinda dissapointed in Kiwi (and even Slush) for making this move, i really thought they had more character. as it now stands, going with the rest of the ROOT would have been more beneficial skill-wise. oh well, let them drown in mediocracy
I was temporarily sceptical about a few things while reading.
Name. Reign seemed sadly uncreative to me. But it does signify the team's ambition better than any other. I hope I'll get used to it!
It's VT Gaming LLC, yet it is not VT gaming. Why is it not VT gaming? VT is already a team with good reputation, although just barely below the absolute top level of performance. But they're moving into a house to step it up!
Phoenix. First I thought "Who is this guy? Never heard of a Phoenix in the top level of the western hemisphere. Then it turns out that it's PheonixWeRRa! But wait, isn't he in Korea? Not anymore! Pheonix will be moving in with the others as well.
Now I am pumped! I am surprised and excited about the fact that VT is mounting such an initiative and wasn't aware that they could do something like that.
I think this post might've gotten me a new favourite team, next to mouse & atn of course, or maybe even above them in little time.
What's even more interesting are the TBD slots. Can't wait to see who is going to fill these up.
Looks like another solid team for the NA SC2 community
Also, after reading about the Korean Terran, TSLRain, willing to play on a foreign team, now actually having PhoenixWeRRa joining Reign can only be good.
Best of luck for Reign hope to start seeing you guys on the NA tournament scene.
Well, VT has always been in the shadow, despite having such talented and organised team. We can clearly see that it's moving nowhere but up! Gogo, guys!
Amazing news. Really excited to see the west's take on a serious professional team house. No offense to any existing team houses, but I don't believe we've yet seen anything that compares to a Korean one.
Wow! Was saddened to see what was arguably the top NA team in ROOT dissolve but Reign should be a strong contender for that title. I'm definitely following KiwiKaki on this one!
Wow, So this must be why ROOT-gaming broke up. No offense against the rest of the team, Catz is my favorite player, but Kiwi and Slush were arguably the strongest players. Good luck to them I can't wait to see what Reign can accomplish!
Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Ehm, ROOT worked for kiwi, slush and Fayth because they did clearly not wanna go to coL for the money. So I don't think a website and sponsors is a problem. If it was, why would they start this in the first place?
On June 15 2011 11:37 Bluft wrote: Fayth is a BW legend and he is a good sc2 player u`ll see more from him in the near future :D
ill admit i havent watched Fayth play sc2 in a long time, but from the games i have seen of him, couldnt even compete with Azz, whiplash or pokebunny.. let alone ANY triple A players.
as for BW legend...steep words... only north american worthy of a title like that is probably Nony (Tyler)
but hopefully he proves me wrong. with Pokebunny's reasoning. im assuming its the same with Azz, since he live in Australia and probably just doesnt want to move to the states for the team house. Whiplash is a REALLY solid player though. i wonder what his reason was. i hope we see an expanded roster soon though, it needs serious work team-wise.
when did I become this underrated lol
heh yea I think people don't give you enough credit, but I think it's fair to say you're a bit of a wild card ^^
i dont have any doubt about me being worse than kiwi, not that much worse than slush, just slightly
but to say i cant compete with azz, whiplash or you, meh cmon lol T_T
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Lost in all this is that Reign is a really awful team name. You wouldn't think going from ROOTSlush to ReignSlush could be such a catastrophic difference, but damn. It's just painful.
Then again, it's still not as bad as the Korean team names (or Team Liquid, for that matter )
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
And what are VTG's sponsors? It's mostly privately funded by people with money.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Good luck to Team Reign . Of all the speculation about where Kwi/Slush/Fayth will end up, I definitely never even imagine that they will move all the way down to San Franscisco to live in a pro house and be join by Phoenix from Korea. Sometimes RL news are just crazier than fantasy!
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
And what are VTG's sponsors? It's mostly privately funded by people with money.
These guys are actually all amazing and interactive with the community. I'm glad they get to practice together and I'm sure with their motivation and the work they seem to be planning to put in they'll be the best in NA soon enough!
These guys are going to need a lot of money to have the same relentless schedule as the Korean Pro teams. Best of luck. I want to see SC2 completely take over NA pro gaming scenes.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
TY for posting it would be awesome to hear more about you're thoughts about where the scene is going over the next couple years. You should post more here
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
Very insightful post, good read too.
On Topic:
Team Reign does largely feel like a strange transition in some ways, I don't the specifics of the salaries and resources(which are obviously key) but it seems like a strange transition, particularly for Kiwi and Slush, if they were going to go to VT, why not just go to Complexity? They are around the same tier in terms of pro-teams in my opinion, it just feels like a decision to choose something that's pretty much the same(or slightly less than) as your other possible option.
However, it would see that VT is interested in making a substantial investment into this team, and I can understand why some of their current members are a little bitter(not that it's entirely appropriate for them to express that in this thread). I truly hope this has actually been planned out well, and works out for everyone involved, but it seems like a pretty risky move overall.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
...
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
TLDR~
Just kidding, great post by Professor Bass - all aboard, eSports 101
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
And what are VTG's sponsors? It's mostly privately funded by people with money.
He's right. Their two sponsors are Nation Voice (which I personally got for them) and another one that is Tranqfx's friend.
Do they have any more sponsors after those two? I didn't check recently.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
...
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
TLDR~
Just kidding, great post by Professor Bass - all aboard, eSports 101
be careful with this ed i got banned for saying this as a joke too once xD
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
Great post, I always figured that getting sponsorship from a company was pretty difficult. I'd imagine that convincing them of the ROI of esports would be pretty difficult to some companies never exposed to the idea.
Yet another reason why the West Coast, and specifically the Bay Area is becoming the next center for ESPORTS in America. GTFO Dallas, we coming 4 ur title ^____^
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
Most people in on this site should read this.
i agree thats best post i read in while nice that people on the top show off some of the work that needs to go into teams.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
Most people in on this site should read this.
wow very good post.
I was once the leader of a Up and coming pro team called team 1nsanity for sc2, and well we recently merged to VP. But man I can tell you finding a Sponsor is very hard. We had so many leads but I could never get to the point were we would set up a meeting with a company because first off getting a response back from a so called lead is hard just on that note. You are usually the last thing on there plate and I can tell you once you do get a response back from a company saying they are interested and they want more information and you get so excited and then not getting another email back is so frustrating. this is one of the reasons I kind of stepped down and leader and now put it into the hands of VP gamers to make this happen because I just got so frustrated on not getting anywhere after all the work I put into 1nsanity. So what I am saying it is VERY Hard on getting a solid sponsor, and those teams that have sponsor I have so much respect for there leadership because I for sure no how hard it really is. Anyways good luck to reign they have a great lineup and I hope them the best!!! SC2 is getting very competitive out there with teams and it just sets that bar that much higher and it should only lead to a bigger following and a lot of awesome games down the road! I am excited about this .
On June 15 2011 10:36 VTGaming wrote: Jonathan “KiWiKaKi” Garneau
Known as one of Canada's best WarCraft 3 players during the lifespan of the game, Kiwikaki has made professional gaming his career. Playing StarCraft 2 full-time, he's seen repeated success with his creative and cunning playstyle. Nicknamed the “Mad Scientist Protoss," Kiwikaki has collected over $10,000 in StarCraft 2 prize winnings. He has finished 2nd at two MLG tournaments, the IGN Pro League Season 1, and placed in the top ten of all but one MLG tournament.
Kiwikaki has also travelled to Korea for Code A qualifiers and can currently be seen playing in the NASL.
Haha, Artosis will be so pleased. This is exciting news, its the potential start of the arms race style practice regime, that culminates in the BW model. If we are to compete with Koreans we need to start practising like them, and I always got the idea that the current pro-gaming houses aren't quite as strict as they should be, maybe because there's no coach in the house, just a couple of friends who get along. Not that that's bad, its the kind of house I would like to live in, but that's because its more like living in a house with some good friends, instead of a practice house).
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
TY for posting it would be awesome to hear more about you're thoughts about where the scene is going over the next couple years. You should post more here
Agreed very amazing write up and good read post more hehe
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
Good to see more NA teams forming and making greater professional dedication. This seems like a pretty stacked team in terms of NA players. I also applaud them taking on Phoenix (formerly from Werra) as I think this help the international status (in relation to the world and korea) of SC2 as many tournaments but not so much teams have so far.
I'm really excited to see how the Korean-esque team house will go, and if these guys can really make a super successful team. I love the lineup they have set right now, I hope the best for all of them!
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
Very insightful. Thanks for adding your comment. It seems like a miracle now that teams like Liquid and EG have been able to strike deals with their sponsors.
I think this is just what NA E-sports needs. This is a great time to reflect on the path from early beta that SC2 has taken and I must say, it is incredible.
I am a casual - I don't own SC2, but I watch it enough to know what strategies work against this and that, just as the casual football (US) fan might yell out who was open during that botched run play.
That said, I have been fortunate enough to witness SC2 growing in a very positive manner. Unlike Korea, most of the foreign pros need to work as well as try to be the best pros they can be. A team house, with practice and improvement in mind daily, is fantastic news. I think the most important part is the idea of having players salaried, thus increasing practice time and also time to promote and market themselves, their team, and E-sports.
With the recent surge of tournaments, hype, and huge stream revenues being brought in, it really looks positive for western E-sports and its great that Reign, with a special nod to Spades, have decided to be the trendsetter and put it on the line to see to it their vision of what E-sports can be finds fruition.
On June 16 2011 04:05 darkpwnage wrote: so ROOT is no longer a team??
Yeah, but it is not like they all went separate ways. CoL. acquired ROOT and most of its line-up because ROOT asked them if they could be part of CoL. Kiwi, Slush and Fayth declined to follow and ended up here
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
I agree with you so much that Ive quoted it again!
*edit* "To support that, VTG Network has set out to create a new type of StarCraft 2 team..."
I didnt understand this line from the OP. What exactly is this "new type" of sc2 team. Sure, its a new team...but it's the same "type" of team as every other team out there. Also given the choice of coL. or vt I really dont understand why you would go with vt. Maybe thats cause I'm an ol' school cs head who used to lurk on gotfrag all the time but w/e...just seems like a no brainer to me.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote: Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 . They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors. Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
Sadly this is true. . This is definatly deserving of a spotlight and shows people how hard it is to start a team, let alone all of the complications that come with it.
Hi, thrilled at the thought of a pro team house in my own SF Bay Area. You should organize some promotional events with Eudemonia in Berkeley. I think the more you can establish yourself as a Bay Area presence the more success you will have signing sponsors in the tech industry out here, which seems like a fertile ground. I would sell it to them as partly an employee morale/perk thing; employee retention is a big deal to these firms and I'm sure lots of them have starcraft players working for them. There are just tons of ways to turn that relationship into a value-add for a big tech company.
I'll certainly be pulling for you at MLG Anaheim! Good luck.
In two days when I am allowed to post a new thread I will post my comment in a thread of its own. I am glad that people were not derogatory towards my comment. Rest assured I will continue to post on the site.
On June 16 2011 08:28 coljbass wrote: In two days when I am allowed to post a new thread I will post my comment in a thread of its own. I am glad that people were not derogatory towards my comment. Rest assured I will continue to post on the site.
On June 16 2011 08:28 coljbass wrote: In two days when I am allowed to post a new thread I will post my comment in a thread of its own. I am glad that people were not derogatory towards my comment. Rest assured I will continue to post on the site.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and “new team.” It’s simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and “new team.” It’s simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
I don't quite understand what you are saying? You said you now have an excuse to take sc2 to the highest level... because now you have something more to strive toward? If so, that's strange that all the competitions weren't enough, but if not then I'm not sure what you mean.
"That said enjoy the show." That could mean a few things in different tones and contexts... so maybe I shouldn't assume...
Regardless, I can see how it might be a bit annoying for VT players, but from my perspective (which obviously isn't the most valid) it just seems like Reign wouldn't even be a possiblity without these players with strong results, so you are no worse off. The fact that they weren't able to invest into the same players who haven't had many results should not be surprising.
At the same time it seems like you can benefit from being on the same team (or close enough) to these players. You will be able to practice with them, and any success they may have (which may lead to sponsors) may also trickle down to you.
On the same hand, this may also mean VT will die out as Reign becomes the primary focus... and I hope that isn't the case.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
you didn't do anything in wc3. get off your high horse perf, lol. btw are you joining the team house michael?
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
I tried to google what you did in wc3 but couldn't find anything, did you go under a different alias?
try googling cgz.perfect. I don't feel like talking about how blue the sky is. Nor do i want to hijack the Reign thread. I just want people to know im on VT gaming and i won't stop playing before Anaheim
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
I sincerely hope VT invests more into their current roster, as I personally think the best way to build a long-term roster and reputation is to start from what you already have. The new website and the new "team" is nice though.
On June 16 2011 23:38 Antimage wrote: Well best of luck to Future and Pokebunny.
I sincerely hope VT invests more into their current roster, as I personally think the best way to build a long-term roster and reputation is to start from what you already have. The new website and the new "team" is nice though.
Agreed with what you have to say. Out of curiousity, maybe you wouldn't want to share, but do you feel similarly with coL's acquisition of ROOT?
On June 16 2011 23:38 Antimage wrote: Well best of luck to Future and Pokebunny.
I sincerely hope VT invests more into their current roster, as I personally think the best way to build a long-term roster and reputation is to start from what you already have. The new website and the new "team" is nice though.
Agreed with what you have to say. Out of curiousity, maybe you wouldn't want to share, but do you feel similarly with coL's acquisition of ROOT?
I know my opinion isn't even remotely as valuable as Antimage's in this situation, but I just wanted to point out that coL's acquisition is much different. They are simply adding more players to their team... which all teams do, and it is to be expected (it just so happened that it was a few recruits at once in this case). On the other hand, Reign seems to be leaving the rest of VT behind, or at least that is how some people are responding to it here.
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
lol
Well played.
I don't get it.. What's the reference to Fayth and unlimited money or w/e? If he has hundreds of millions he should start his own SC2 franchise >>
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
lol
Well played.
I don't get it.. What's the reference to Fayth and unlimited money or w/e? If he has hundreds of millions he should start his own SC2 franchise >>
Where are you seeing "hundreds of millions" or "unlimited money." All I saw was Spades suggesting that Fayth has more money than him... that doesn't mean Fayth is rich.
Regardless, I don't see the problem with Spades being the captain... he seems like he'd be a good captain.
Let's see how many times people will continue to make the awful Reign.Rain joke. We're on page 31, let's keep it up.
Seems like there is a lot of inner-team acrimony at the moment. That is understandable but it doesn't seem like everyone is on board with the news if you know what I mean...
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
lol
Well played.
I don't get it.. What's the reference to Fayth and unlimited money or w/e? If he has hundreds of millions he should start his own SC2 franchise >>
Where are you seeing "hundreds of millions" or "unlimited money." All I saw was Spades suggesting that Fayth has more money than him... that doesn't mean Fayth is rich.
Regardless, I don't see the problem with Spades being the captain... he seems like he'd be a good captain.
Saw it somewhere else: "Fayth has unlimited money" --> that's what was what was said, so that in conjunction with the allusions to the same thing here in this thread make me curious...
On June 17 2011 09:07 IPA wrote: Let's see how many times people will continue to make the awful Reign.Rain joke. We're on page 31, let's keep it up.
Better yet: let's see how many times somebody has the presence of mind after making said lame Reign.Rain joke to actually look back and verify if it's already been made, then retrospectively apologize for repeating it :D
On June 15 2011 11:20 sicarii wrote: Damn i was hoping Kiwi would go for a European team as the NA teams are so much weaker maybe the two open spots will be filled with respectable players but I'm skeptical. And why is kiwikaki not the captain? by far the best player in the roster, i get that Spades is supposed to be VT's top guy, but i mean its Kiwikaki, just the way he looks at the game can help the whole team when he is in a position to lead.
you really don't know kiwikaki's personality lol, no way he would even come close to wanting to be the team captain
FAYTH FOR CAPTAIN!
I second that!
Poor Spades, already getting voted out of office.
ill trade places with fayth if i get his bank account
lol
Well played.
I don't get it.. What's the reference to Fayth and unlimited money or w/e? If he has hundreds of millions he should start his own SC2 franchise >>
Where are you seeing "hundreds of millions" or "unlimited money." All I saw was Spades suggesting that Fayth has more money than him... that doesn't mean Fayth is rich.
Regardless, I don't see the problem with Spades being the captain... he seems like he'd be a good captain.
Fayth is rich, he played poker and has made millions off of it, but not hundreds of millions (or at least I don't think 100's of millions )
I don't want to be a pure hater and rain on these guys parade. (unintentional pun was unintentional)
But although my last post was rather concise, most of what I have had to read in this thread rather feeds the fear of my predictions becoming reality than they do to diminish it. I absolutely acknowledge how hard it is to find sponsors for anything, let alone a rather young and unproven branche such as e-sports. But given how hard it is to find funds and how we have heard no news of any large company being interested, I am led to believe that they are still going on their old resources. These resources - as PokeBunny already confirmed - were rather limited. My fear is still that this is a major hype to attract publicity, filled with rather vague and empty statements on the new team and their 'pro-house'.
Let me elaborate:
- VT already has an existing team. They start this off and invest a ton of their money into getting new players and getting them to live in a pro house. This makes the existing team lose a lot of their funds if no new sponsors are acquired soon. In the best case they are left to be a B-team of sorts
- The "new style" of pro-house. What do they mean by this? Are they going to offer rigorous training regimens, are they opting to include other teams in the endeavour? What is this "new style" they are talking about.
- Further on the house: A lot of their new players have families/housing of their own, so I imagine they will not be permanent residents of the new pro-house. Who will come to live their? And how valid is the house as a training location if most of their talent is residing off-site?
- Management/players said that VT was going nowhere. How will this be different for the new team? No significant changes have been announced, so why will this new project not fail?
Overall I am left rather sceptical on the whole matter. Note that I might change my opinion when more information is released, but as it stands ... it seems to be a front to get people hyped and attract more fans to show off to potential investors. I understand people being happy with any new team that forms, but I have a gut feeling that the 'old' VT core-team will be left to their own devices and soon after perish. Imo that is not a good way to treat the people that got them in the position to start this project in the first place.
Apart from that all: I hope I am proven wrong and I wish the players (both old and new) the best of luck in all their endeavours.
Best of luck to these guys. I'm sure spades will get 10x better training with these monsters. Now all I need is a kiwikaki replay pack and I'll be all set.
On June 17 2011 12:29 [FSM]Doji wrote: I don't want to be a pure hater and rain on these guys parade. (unintentional pun was unintentional)
But although my last post was rather concise, most of what I have had to read in this thread rather feeds the fear of my predictions becoming reality than they do to diminish it. I absolutely acknowledge how hard it is to find sponsors for anything, let alone a rather young and unproven branche such as e-sports. But given how hard it is to find funds and how we have heard no news of any large company being interested, I am led to believe that they are still going on their old resources. These resources - as PokeBunny already confirmed - were rather limited. My fear is still that this is a major hype to attract publicity, filled with rather vague and empty statements on the new team and their 'pro-house'.
Let me elaborate:
- VT already has an existing team. They start this off and invest a ton of their money into getting new players and getting them to live in a pro house. This makes the existing team lose a lot of their funds if no new sponsors are acquired soon. In the best case they are left to be a B-team of sorts
- The "new style" of pro-house. What do they mean by this? Are they going to offer rigorous training regimens, are they opting to include other teams in the endeavour? What is this "new style" they are talking about.
- Further on the house: A lot of their new players have families/housing of their own, so I imagine they will not be permanent residents of the new pro-house. Who will come to live their? And how valid is the house as a training location if most of their talent is residing off-site?
- Management/players said that VT was going nowhere. How will this be different for the new team? No significant changes have been announced, so why will this new project not fail?
Overall I am left rather sceptical on the whole matter. Note that I might change my opinion when more information is released, but as it stands ... it seems to be a front to get people hyped and attract more fans to show off to potential investors. I understand people being happy with any new team that forms, but I have a gut feeling that the 'old' VT core-team will be left to their own devices and soon after perish. Imo that is not a good way to treat the people that got them in the position to start this project in the first place.
Apart from that all: I hope I am proven wrong and I wish the players (both old and new) the best of luck in all their endeavours.
On June 16 2011 16:00 VTPerfect wrote: I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3.
And what was that? If you're so good, elaborate.
KiWiKaKi was a pro wc3 player and played on the best american wc3 team that competed in WC3L.
what "have you done"?
anyway, it's a good move for kiwi and slush. They can build the team around them.
what happened to VT Gaming's website? I can't even find their site that lists the "old" VT Gaming.
It may not have happened yet but I believe that VT gaming will disband. It is "the same" as before but honestly, the players, if they're smart will look for a new team.
i agree, the old VT team should just be disbanded. unfortunately, the old members never performed well, so they will have a very hard time getting picked up by other teams.
So excited! I watch him stream so much, it's great to see him getting some positive press! He's never had that many stream viewers, considering he's top 10 in GM on NA and GM in Korea.
Just watched FXOpen Invitational Series #4 NA Qualifier
Kiwikaki vs Sixjax vibe.. Vibe absolutely demolished Kiwikaki, i was kinda suprised in the difference of control. Sure kiwi had solid micro, but vibe never lost control in the matches. It got me thinking when the last time was i saw kiwi in a great form.. IPL? Dunno but i hope he returns to it soon, Vibe is good but the discrepany between my expectation from kiwi and the actual performance was too big to validate all the discussion in this thread. That said, destiny seemed really poor in his performance aswell.. Hope both players will find more quality training in their respective new teams.
On June 18 2011 12:40 Loxley wrote: Just watched FXOpen Invitational Series #4 NA Qualifier
Kiwikaki vs Sixjax vibe.. Vibe absolutely demolished Kiwikaki, i was kinda suprised in the difference of control. Sure kiwi had solid micro, but vibe never lost control in the matches. It got me thinking when the last time was i saw kiwi in a great form.. IPL? Dunno but i hope he returns to it soon, Vibe is good but the discrepany between my expectation from kiwi and the actual performance was too big to validate all the discussion in this thread. That said, destiny seemed really poor in his performance aswell.. Hope both players will find more quality training in their respective new teams.
Of course you can't judge players based on a single tournament, but certainly interesting results nevertheless. Another noteworthy one from the same tournament with regards to the whole Reign/VT thing was Azz taking out Spades and then losing to Pokebunny.
On June 17 2011 09:07 IPA wrote: Let's see how many times people will continue to make the awful Reign.Rain joke. We're on page 31, let's keep it up.
Seems like there is a lot of inner-team acrimony at the moment. That is understandable but it doesn't seem like everyone is on board with the news if you know what I mean...
WHOAA!! Reign.Rain! That would be epic. you're a genius!!
Question: Is IdrA one of the new Reign members? Among all the Reign accounts I've seen created, I've also seen RGNIdrA on the ladder, and it is something like 10-0. He is rolling face across the people he plays so it almost seems legit, but leaving EG for RGN seems strange. Can anyone clarify?
I didn't make the account.. it was in a chat channel for a tournament along with players such as RGNSpades, sixjaxViBE, etc. It was only in there for about 20 seconds but I managed to add it, so that's why I was surprised at seeing it.
all trash players send these kids to the bin all day everyday on ladder kids need to man up smalltimes love the dumpster basement dwelling dweeb fanboys who dont know shit about GM league
On June 19 2011 08:00 Tarfire wrote: Question: Is IdrA one of the new Reign members? Among all the Reign accounts I've seen created, I've also seen RGNIdrA on the ladder, and it is something like 10-0. He is rolling face across the people he plays so it almost seems legit, but leaving EG for RGN seems strange. Can anyone clarify?
Seems a bit unlikely, especcially with the whole EG team house being announced and that stuff, but who knows, might be real. I guess we'll find out in the not too distant future.
spades and slush on the same team wow looks like a new rival to coL is building. anyone else think TT1 and ajtls could be the next 2 announced? what an exiting time for eSports
On June 19 2011 08:00 Tarfire wrote: Question: Is IdrA one of the new Reign members? Among all the Reign accounts I've seen created, I've also seen RGNIdrA on the ladder, and it is something like 10-0. He is rolling face across the people he plays so it almost seems legit, but leaving EG for RGN seems strange. Can anyone clarify?
I would say that either that person is trolling everyone. Or that indeed is the real IdrA. IMO might be th real IdrA, though not 100% sure.
On June 19 2011 08:00 Tarfire wrote: Question: Is IdrA one of the new Reign members? Among all the Reign accounts I've seen created, I've also seen RGNIdrA on the ladder, and it is something like 10-0. He is rolling face across the people he plays so it almost seems legit, but leaving EG for RGN seems strange. Can anyone clarify?
he's 10-0 because he's in diamond league and it doesn't show your losses.
for all we know he could have a 25% winrate, RGNidra is a random scrub
On June 19 2011 08:00 Tarfire wrote: Question: Is IdrA one of the new Reign members? Among all the Reign accounts I've seen created, I've also seen RGNIdrA on the ladder, and it is something like 10-0. He is rolling face across the people he plays so it almost seems legit, but leaving EG for RGN seems strange. Can anyone clarify?
he's 10-0 because he's in diamond league and it doesn't show your losses.
for all we know he could have a 25% winrate, RGNidra is a random scrub
Even if it was the real IdrA, he would just change his ladder account because iirc he's always been known as EGIdrA on the ladder and he'd have the free name change.
I mean, it's obviously not him, but I guess that means it's doubly not him.
WHEN are they going to bloody get around to announcing their other 2 players? I think they will make or break this team as they have very solid players ( pheonix, kiwi, slush ) mixed in with less skilled players like spades and fayth, and if the last 2 are good then I can see this team going places but if it is the latter it will be a real shame.
On June 15 2011 11:14 masterbreti wrote: Apperently according to Vt players. Everything is the same for VT. Only now they have two different sc2 teams. One living in a house and one living apart. 2 different divisions.
But I still really want to say a huge f you to frank. Just sort of seems like he is favouring a new little baby. Just seems out of place. Maybe its just a kneejerk reaction though.
I can't believe that current VT players believe "Everything is the same."
After reading through 30 pages of posts and seeing some people accusing the "old" VT team members of bitterness, I think they should understand how disheartening it is for players that work hard to do their best for "their" team and then get slapped in the face with, "Yeah, we're gonna have a pro house..oh, and a new team, so you guys ain't comin with us." (Hidden message - we only want the best and most popular players)
Understandably, VT Gaming is first and foremost a business, and like any business - gaming or not - they have to maintain a corporate mentality in order to survive. That means, making money and being successful. Sponsors don't back a losing team. And I'm almost certain most VTGs funds and their attention will be dedicated to pro house and new team. Its simply common sense and how corporations work.
I wish the "new" VT luck in their endeavors and I wish the "old" team members much success with or without VT.
My coach is VTFuture, He has been my coach for a long time. I did chat with him briefly about it.
Basically what I got from him and other VT members. They don't like it that much. They understand the point. There is a little bit of bitterness there from what I can sense. Which they have every right to have. If I got shafted just because of new people. I would be pissed off and myself would likely quit the team.
This is not the case though and the VT members are sticking with Frank (Mirhi (VTG manager)) for now. Honestly I don't see current VT lasting very long because of the fact that Mirhi will basically put all his love into this new team and Exia (the manager who managers the shafted players) will be left to try to keep the current team together.
Future said basically all that has really changed for them is losing Spades. Which TBH is not the biggest loss in the world. They have some pretty damn solid players and I only see VT getting better and possibily being better than Reign.
Personally I will see where things go and hopefully Future, Whiplash, Pokebunny. Bitter, and the rest keep strong and keep being awesome.
you see the possibly being better than reign? no offense to the guys in vt, but there is a reason they are in vt and not reign.
I guess most people don't know what I've done in Wc3. This Reign business has given me an excuse to take Sc2 to the highest level. VT was going nowhere as a team so forming Reign was the correct business decision. That said enjoy the show.
Oh god. Perfect still in love with Perfect, with his huge ego and largely overestimating himself. You did nothing in Wc3 but talked really big and really loud a really large portion of the time. Thats about all i see thats similar from your Wc3 -.- Despite this i don't get the huge rap over Whiplash earlier in this thread, Azz, Perfect and Pokebunny are all far better imo
On June 30 2011 13:00 Dianostique wrote: Website is not up on time :O
that's vt gaming standard
You're sick good, aren't you personally sponsored by like 3 different companies? So good. Are you going to be winning the next MLG, DH, or HSC?
On a different subject, I really don't like VT anymore because of this, seems like they just go for whatever makes them more popular and gives them more publicity, personally liked Pokebunny, and saddened he had to leave VT because he was undervalued by them. Did anyone else leave VT because of VT taking on Reign?
On June 30 2011 13:00 Dianostique wrote: Website is not up on time :O
that's vt gaming standard
You're sick good, aren't you personally sponsored by like 3 different companies? So good. Are you going to be winning the next MLG, DH, or HSC?
On a different subject, I really don't like VT anymore because of this, seems like they just go for whatever makes them more popular and gives them more publicity, personally liked Pokebunny, and saddened he had to leave VT because he was undervalued by them. Did anyone else leave VT because of VT taking on Reign?
On June 30 2011 13:00 Dianostique wrote: Website is not up on time :O
that's vt gaming standard
You're sick good, aren't you personally sponsored by like 3 different companies? So good. Are you going to be winning the next MLG, DH, or HSC?
On a different subject, I really don't like VT anymore because of this, seems like they just go for whatever makes them more popular and gives them more publicity, personally liked Pokebunny, and saddened he had to leave VT because he was undervalued by them. Did anyone else leave VT because of VT taking on Reign?
yes. the team pretty much fell apart honestly
There seems to be a couple of bitter posts in the thread itself, and though you weren't outwardly disappointed and bitter yourself, it would seem that behind the scenes most of the old VT team wasn't really happy with this.
It's kind of understandable though...
VT sort of ditched their current roster to create something entirely new, I wonder what would have happened if they made the investment they made in Reign into the original VT team. Either way, VT may have seen it as a more solid bet to try to work with players with somewhat better results. Sucks for the current roster, risky for VT, might turn out great in the end though. We'll have to wait and see.
Good luck to Reign though, sounds like VT is investing quite a bit into the team.
On June 30 2011 13:00 Dianostique wrote: Website is not up on time :O
that's vt gaming standard
You're sick good, aren't you personally sponsored by like 3 different companies? So good. Are you going to be winning the next MLG, DH, or HSC?
On a different subject, I really don't like VT anymore because of this, seems like they just go for whatever makes them more popular and gives them more publicity, personally liked Pokebunny, and saddened he had to leave VT because he was undervalued by them. Did anyone else leave VT because of VT taking on Reign?
thanks man i hope to make you proud at MLG DH and HSC
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wUs9n.png)
Spades
KiWiKaKi
SLush
TBD
.
. And to make it an even 2T, 2Z, and 2P split I guess.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iuwhb.jpg)
