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Russian Federation80 Posts
Hello everyone, Artem from Na`Vi.FXOpen is here!
It’s very hard for me to say, but after 3 years of presence on the pro scene our StarCraft 2 team is disbanding. Unfortunately from November the 1st FXOpen stop sponsoring our team as well as FXO.KR. From now on Anton “LoWeLy” Plebanovich is going inactive, me and the other players are looking for new teams.
On behalf of my team, I want to thank FXOpen and all our sponsors for their sincere support and professionalism during the last 3 years. I would also like to thank our fans who cheered and supported us in our good and bad times no matter what, you guys are amazing! StarCraft 2 community always was, is and always will be the best gaming community ever, and I am very proud to be part of it!
Life is full of coincidences: in 1 month I would have had a 3-year anniversary since I joined the team, originally “Guild of Imbalance” or just “imba”, which later transformed to “imba.FXOpen”, “FXOpen E-Sports” and, finally, “Na`Vi.FXOpen”. Up to the date, I was the last member who joined the team before FXOpen sponsorship. During last month I was writing an anniversary blog full of cool insights, never released photos and videos I made at different team events and tournaments. However, things have changed, and looks like it will be my last article about the team. I will slightly change it and write the reasons why the team was disbanded and what me and other players are going to do in the nearest future.
After I told the players about the blog I've been working on, they expressed their wish to contribute to the blog and add some of their thoughts on the current situation with the team and StarCraft 2 pro scene in general. The blog will be posted on teamliquid.net in the beginning of next week, stay tuned and thanks for your attention!
Cheers,
Artem “Fairon” Bykov
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United States252 Posts
Another team disbands  good luck to all the players and I hope they find new teams quickly.
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Germany3691 Posts
That sucks to hear
Though at least this time no one can blame sc2 as fxopen completely stopped sponsoring anything in esports, which I hear is due to the new ceo not really liking esports as much as the old one.
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Russian Federation126 Posts
Goodbye FXO.NaVi :c
i hope Lowely, Minato, Slavik and Strelok can find a new team.
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I thought NaVi was taking sole possession of the team? Guess not.
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Gl in your future endeavours!
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United States23455 Posts
Hmm so Lowely going inactive. He used to be one of the better Zergs in Europe, even making top 4 at WCS EU 2012 and making the World finals. Overshadowed by Stephano and Vortix, but a very good Zerg at the time.
So that leaves HappyZerg, Minato, and Strelok to all find teams. Maybe we'll see them back on Empire.
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I hoped to have Na'Vi take the team fully. I guess not.
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Mech is on the endangered species list and has to be saved. Belarusian Fonzie must stay too. As do HappyZerg. He's handsome and totally cool.
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On November 01 2013 22:07 Darkhoarse wrote:
Hmm so Lowely going inactive. He used to be one of the better Zergs in Europe, even making top 4 at WCS EU 2012 and making the World finals. Overshadowed by Stephano and Vortix, but a very good Zerg at the time.
So that leaves HappyZerg, Minato, and Strelok to all find teams. Maybe we'll see them back on Empire.
LoWeLy has unfortunately done very little since HotS release
really sad that Na'Vi did not continue to support SC2, considering the amount of talent and great showmanship in the Ukraine.
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This is so unfortunate... best of luck to you guys, I hope that you'll find a new team soon.
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sad
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What was NaVi's part of this team? FXO was sponsoring, what NaVi was doing?
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This really sucks I didn't even think of the lack of sponsorship with FXO and Na'Vi T_T hopefully the players can find a new home soon!
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HappyZerg deserves a team more than most IMO. Everytime I played the guy he showed nothing but stellar play and class. His blogs are also really interesting. Good luck HZ 
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Not too shocked to hear this to be honest, Na'Vi never have been very active with the players they picked up in Starcraft 2 and FXO recently dropped their sponsorship of the Korean team, still a shame for all the players and I hope they get picked up by another team.
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On November 01 2013 22:02 StarStruck wrote:
I thought NaVi was taking sole possession of the team? Guess not.
That's what I thought as well. Sad to hear other wise. NaVi.Strelok seemed so right.
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Sad that the team disbands Hope they will find a new one where they can improve 
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On November 01 2013 23:46 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
What was NaVi's part of this team? FXO was sponsoring, what NaVi was doing?
I wonder that too
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Ah such a bummer.
Good luck in your future endeavors, can't wait to read that article.
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On November 02 2013 04:58 HighArT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2013 23:46 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
What was NaVi's part of this team? FXO was sponsoring, what NaVi was doing? I wonder that too
They were obviously supplying the best hoodies in the bizz.
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Another blow for the all aspiring, low and mid tier foreign progamers. SC2 at the very top might be doing fine but below that level we have huge problems.
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Sad to see FXO leaving the scene entirely.
I wonder if it was FXO.Boss' [who is no longer with FXO, iirc] labor of love the whole time and whether the incremental advertising cost was simply not competitive to other advertising methods.
I wish the remaining squad the best.
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Could see this coming, FXO is no longer the SC2 business. Why would they be? This game offers nothing anymore.
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On November 02 2013 05:45 MyaurA wrote:
Could see this coming, FXO is no longer the SC2 business. Why would they be? This game offers nothing anymore.
Let us chill with the naysaying.
GL to you guys!
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Sad!
I really hope Strelok can find a team. He was my first favorite Terran.
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Sad, but inevitable.
Good luck to everyone
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On November 02 2013 05:45 MyaurA wrote:
Could see this coming, FXO is no longer the SC2 business. Why would they be? This game offers nothing anymore.
FXO had more than a SC2 team that they stopped funding (if I've read correctly they at least have a dota team as well)
Its not SC2 its FXO
EDIT: Unless of course I've misunderstood and FXO is still sponsoring their dota team
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
best of luck
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There are three points here really:
1) I think everyone can understand that FXOpen wasn't exactly a company which would benefit that immensely from eSports. The reason why they were investing so heavily in eSports, is that some or more people in upper management were passionate about eSports, and managed to convince the rest that it will be a big thing, and that investing in it would be good. Once said person/s withdrew from FXO, and once the FXO employee in charge of the team also decided to leave, FXOpen probably found it hard to justify the expense to start again from scratch. Once the agreement between Na'Vi and FXO ran out, Na'Vi probably decided against having to fund the team by themselves.
2) The reason why Na'Vi doesn't seem to care as much about SC2 is because Na'Vi want two things: They want their teams somehow Ukraine-based, as this is part of their character, and they want their players to be world contenders. The truth is, that a team of foreign players can never be as dominant as Na'Vi wants their teams to be - and I can't see Na'Vi picking up Korean players, because Na'Vi has always been about being Ukraine/CIS based. Both their Counter-Strike, and Dota 2 teams are amongst the best in the world, and they need to keep up their reputation. Apart from their SC2 team, another one of their teams didn't reach these objectives. Their League of Legends team, and it was dropped within a matter of months.
3) To be fair, Na'Vi had ample occasion to create a good SC2 team, but they missed their chances when they failed to pick up the best in Ukraine. White-Ra, and DIMAGA would have made the organisation as popular as mouz or Millenium at least in the SC2 scene, but they didn't do this.
BTW:
Minato has joined Cascade
HappyZerg, it seems, will be sponsored by CIS broadcaster ESFX TV and he will be ESFX | FXO HappyZerg (I don't really understand FXO either)
LoWeLy will be going inactive.
Strelok, nothing announced yet, but I guess he'll go to Empire or Virtus.pro.
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I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it.
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On November 02 2013 02:03 Let it Raine wrote:
Lowely was really good.
The case of Lowely is pretty heart breaking. He actually had decent success throughout the latter half of wings and showed a lot of promise but has just made zero impact in HotS. Can't help but wonder if things had been different if he had just received a seed in WCS season 1 (which arguably he did deserve). Minato has potential but just can't seem to get a break out.
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Good luck to all the players, and yeah, shame if Lowely goes inactive because of this. Hope another Ukrainian powerhouse team comes along sooner rather than later.
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Now it has became official. But actually it happened to be obivous when FXO stopped sponsoring KR-team.
I guess NaVi made much less on their second try to create SC2-team. NaVi was only a tech-sponsor this time. So there's nothing to be surprised at this time. They just don't give a F about SC2, but want their name to represented here.
Best of luck to the players and manager of ex-NaVi.FXO.
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What happened to BBK though ??, wasn't he a member of the team as well..
Hope the guys find a new team though.. hope they get their talents better shown
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On November 02 2013 08:27 VArsovskiSC wrote:
What happened to BBK though ??, wasn't he a member of the team as well..
Hope the guys find a new team though.. hope they get their talents better shown
He moved to Millenium a while ago
*First of September
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can't believe it, hope you all do well whatever your plans are
i was quite sure you will find a sponsor soon
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On November 02 2013 06:45 FXOBoSs wrote:
I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it.
If this is the case, then a lot of teams in general do a spectacularly crappy job of advertising, getting the word or whatever you want to call it. I didn't know anyone on any FXO teams had a twitter that they cared about. EG players, most notably iNcontroL, asks viewers to do things for them, and guess what.... they do it. People will do things to keep teams and/or players going, but they don't read minds. Tons of sheeple to herd out there!
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On November 02 2013 17:06 chaos021 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2013 06:45 FXOBoSs wrote:
I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it. If this is the case, then a lot of teams in general do a spectacularly crappy job of advertising, getting the word or whatever you want to call it. I didn't know anyone on any FXO teams had a twitter that they cared about. EG players, most notably iNcontroL, asks viewers to do things for them, and guess what.... they do it. People will do things to keep teams and/or players going, but they don't read minds. Tons of sheeple to herd out there!
have to agree with this. it's clear that if your only marketing of the team consists of your players streaming their ladder practice on twitch, you're going to fail.
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On November 02 2013 17:06 chaos021 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2013 06:45 FXOBoSs wrote:
I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it. If this is the case, then a lot of teams in general do a spectacularly crappy job of advertising, getting the word or whatever you want to call it. I didn't know anyone on any FXO teams had a twitter that they cared about. EG players, most notably iNcontroL, asks viewers to do things for them, and guess what.... they do it. People will do things to keep teams and/or players going, but they don't read minds. Tons of sheeple to herd out there!
To be fair, they are russian/ukrainian, you are not. They have their own SC2 scene, sc2tv.ru and so on.
If they are active in their scene, publishing news, streaming, we won't hear about that on TL.
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that's sad. really looking forward to this blog. good luck to everyone !
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I'M so sad. My loved LoWeLy Has inactive ╦_╦
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On November 02 2013 04:58 HighArT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2013 23:46 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
What was NaVi's part of this team? FXO was sponsoring, what NaVi was doing? I wonder that too
nothing
just a tag (fanbase)
because na'vi.cs are almost legendary in Ukraine and na'vi dota also
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I've asked Lowely about this and he told me that this is not his final desicion.
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On November 02 2013 18:41 dreamseller wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2013 17:06 chaos021 wrote:On November 02 2013 06:45 FXOBoSs wrote:
I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it. If this is the case, then a lot of teams in general do a spectacularly crappy job of advertising, getting the word or whatever you want to call it. I didn't know anyone on any FXO teams had a twitter that they cared about. EG players, most notably iNcontroL, asks viewers to do things for them, and guess what.... they do it. People will do things to keep teams and/or players going, but they don't read minds. Tons of sheeple to herd out there! have to agree with this. it's clear that if your only marketing of the team consists of your players streaming their ladder practice on twitch, you're going to fail.
They weren't even doing that to begin with like Josh said. I'm one of the guys vehemently against using streaming as your platform as well because it isn't good practice. Still there are a lot of things you can be doing when it comes to generating content, which a lot of teams fail to recognize.
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On November 02 2013 05:37 marcesr wrote:
Another blow for the all aspiring, low and mid tier foreign progamers. SC2 at the very top might be doing fine but below that level we have huge problems.
To be honest, there are way too many subpar people who want to earn money playing this game. There's no reason anyone should earn money if they're not part of one of the top-tier teams. Starcraft is first and foremost a video game, not a profession.
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Darn. It breaks my heart that another SC2 has disbanded... I wish the best for the players and that they can continue their passion for SC2 in other manners.
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im confused here... so this means Navi will no longer carry the FXO.eu team as well? Dafuq... BabyKnight was doing so well too...
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On November 05 2013 03:10 Advantageous wrote:im confused here... so this means Navi will no longer carry the FXO.eu team as well? Dafuq... BabyKnight was doing so well too...
BabyKnight left for Millenium two months ago
Na'Vi/FXO.EU no longer exists. Minato has joined another Ukrainian team called Cascade (which was Beastyqt's team). HappyZerg has a personal sponsorship from ESFXtv, which is somehow related to FXO; Strelok is teamless, and LoWeLy is contemplating going inactive.
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On November 02 2013 20:37 00Visor wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2013 17:06 chaos021 wrote:On November 02 2013 06:45 FXOBoSs wrote:
I hate reading threads like this. Mostly because of the insane speculation that goes on. For as long as ESFXTV.com exists they are still in e-sports but in a different way. I think the ultimate reason why FXOpen stopped sponsorship is because the players either 1) refused to stream or 2) couldn't draw viewers to esfxtv.com which in my opinion is a silly platform based on a silly idea.
If viewers had followed the twitter accounts or whatever and clicked on the esfxtv stream links and produced good numbers they would have stayed in the sponsorships or trimmed teams to the ones who drew traffic.
I think unstable touched on this in his leaving video. But there isn't really much else to say about it. If this is the case, then a lot of teams in general do a spectacularly crappy job of advertising, getting the word or whatever you want to call it. I didn't know anyone on any FXO teams had a twitter that they cared about. EG players, most notably iNcontroL, asks viewers to do things for them, and guess what.... they do it. People will do things to keep teams and/or players going, but they don't read minds. Tons of sheeple to herd out there! To be fair, they are russian/ukrainian, you are not. They have their own SC2 scene, sc2tv.ru and so on. If they are active in their scene, publishing news, streaming, we won't hear about that on TL.
So what? I follow White-Ra, DiMaGa, BratOk (when he was streaming). If you play solid Starcraft, I'm looking for you, your stream and anything you give a flying crap about. So why not throw out commercials? Plug your sponsors? Tell the tons of sheeple out there what to click if they like you??? For all of SC2's failing, it has truly become a global game so being Russian or Ukrainian has nothing to do with it in my opinion unless that player has decided to make themselves insular.
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EPT
