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Professional protoss player Robert "PandaTank" Botha from South Africa announces on his facebook profile that he will retire. Just like Polt, he had personal sponsorship with CM Storm.
"Hey guys, I have some news to share.
This will be the official announcement of my retirement from pro-gaming. I'm sure a lot of you will want to know why. Let's just put it this way, all good things must eventually come to an end and being a professional gamer in South Africa isn't a sustainable career. I'm getting older and I need to start thinking about what my next adventures in life will be.
It sucks to be leaving behind something I put so much time and effort into over the last few years. However, on the other side of the coin, I have already achieved everything from gaming that I set out to, being mainly traveling, playing on the main stage in front of a massive live audience, attending Homestory cup(no jokes) and representing my country. Therefore I have no regrets in the choices I made or the way that I spent my time.
All-in-all it has been an amazing, life changing experience. I got to travel to places I probably would never have been able to(or at least not any time soon), I made tons of awesome friends along the way and I even managed to inspire the odd person here and there through my "triumphs".
For one last time I just want to give a few thanks to the people that made it possible for me. Most importantly my family. They were always there for me and extremely supportive of my choices, both emotionally and financially.
I'd like to thank CMStorm for giving me the opportunity to be the first South African pro-gamer. It was a privilege to be sponsored by them. While my results were no where near as good as I wanted them to be while apart of the team, I still had some small moments of glory, such as knocking out an IEM Champion(WW.Sting) at Dreamhack Summer. Not bad for a dude that practices on 200 ping.
Big thanks to both Ben "MrBitter" Nicol and Dennis "TaKe" Gehlen for letting me stay at their places free of charge while I was overseas. You dudes are really awesome and I owe you.
And last but not least, a huge thanks to all my fans and supporters over the last 2 years. I know I didn't always show my full appreciation by replying to a all of your messages, or playing custom games with you, etc. But just know that every time I saw a supportive message from you guys, or knew that you were watching one of my games it meant a lot to me. You guys really made it all worth it.
Sincerely,
PandaTank "
Full facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/PandaTank/posts/480048018761882?stream_ref=10
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Another one bites the dust :-((((
Goodluck PT!
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Must be insanely hard to be globally competitive from a scene such as South Africa. I was only able to watch him for a couple of events, but he seemed like a really cool dude. Best of luck Pandatank!
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If only he was located elsewhere in the country..might have had a much better time with his career. GL in your endeavors panda
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So many people retiring. Sad to see. Gl panda in the next part of your life.
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Man, this one really sucks for me. I really liked PandaTank and always followed stuff that he did - but it was also evident that being in SA was not easy in trying to be a progamer. He had no choice but to play through rough lag, but still streamed and did very well despite that.
He had some great runs last year though. Made quite a few deep runs in almost every WCS EU qualifier.
Well, GL in the future PandaTank! I know I'll miss cheering for you.
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Too bad 
He came so close in last year's WCS qualifier at some point, and I found myself rooting for him & Feast then.
gl hf irl panda!
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Here's hoping for PhoenixTank
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He was a great player and a great man.
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Unfortunate, but geographically understandable. Best of luck
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
Must be damn tough being a progamer in South Africa. Kudos to him for trying, it's more than many people dare to. GL!
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I remember when he dropped some players I was rooting for in qualifiers and I was like "fuck you pandatank who the hell are you??" But when I kept watching his play I saw that he was really good player! Sad to see him go I wish you best of luck whatever you decide to do!
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Too bad, he had a nice career, i'll remember him!
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What a lovely message  Whatever you go on to do PandaTank the very best of luck with it. You did your country proud I'm sure.
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unlucky to not make it futher in wcs. gl irl PT
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Not our south african
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Oh damn. Really sad to hear. I remember him when we were on type ii. Really cool very determined and really motivated. Goodluck mate!
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PandaTank has been an inspiration for me to practice hard at whatever I want to achieve since he made his debut on the SC2 scene in SA during the WoL beta. I followed his Bnet profile and checked it regularly until he finally made it into GM and remained there until now. He was a great player and a competitor in games ranging from DotA to CS and SC2.
Farewell and good luck!
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Katowice25012 Posts
I'll always remember PandaTank as my favorite South African player.
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On January 15 2014 05:18 Heyoka wrote:
I'll always remember PandaTank as my favorite South African player.
I see what you did there...
Anyway, Pandatank was an impressive player, and seeing him quit is sad. practicing from south Africa... god that should have been so hard.
Gl hf IRL.
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Well that's a big bummer.
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TLADT24920 Posts
I didn't realize he was a South African player. Either way, best of luck to him!
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Sad to hear, I hope new and fatter cables will make online gaming possible from all over Africa soon. As a frequent East Africa visitor the internet connectivity has gotten tremendously better in a few years only, but I wouldn't dream of even trying to log in on battlenet from there. Gl&hf to PandaTank who almost did the impossible!
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While the ping is tough to permanently practice on, its definitely not unplayable to Europe. Online qualifiers would obviously be quite challenging though. I doubt that Australians trying to qualify on different servers to SEA have it much better. The biggest challenge (in my opinion) is the lack of support, teams or LAN events to attend without making an overseas trip. He really was trying to do it by himself.
Sad to see such a pioneer go. I tried to follow his career when I could.
GL in the future!!
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sad, the only good player africa ever had
the pride of a whole continent is gone
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Thanks Panda for giving African E-Sport a Face.
And most important: YOUR NAME WAS AWESOME!
Keep that Nick for whatever you do....=) .... GL!
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never really heard of him or anything he ever did/competed in. although considering geography, can't blame him.
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51578 Posts
He was really talented, but what stopped him moving to mainland Europe to play full-time if ping was such a big issue?
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Before CMStorm personally sponsored him, he had to pay for every trip to events. Moving to Europe would have been a drastic move, considering how weak the South African Rand is to the other main currencies.
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GL to whatever he decides to do next. I really like watching him play and was pulling for him hard last year to get into challenger. Came close so many times just never made it in
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first time hearing about this guy.
so actually i dont care if he retires or not.
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Thank you for representing your Country and showing what it can mean to follow your dreams! :-)
Also Good Games overall!
Regarding the other discussion coming up: Ping is allright, but the Scene is very small over here, that presents a bigger problem in itself. The guys are more into the FPS-Games and Dota around here...
(And guys, please, South Africa is one of the countries with the most acceptable infrastructure in Africa, its not like we all livei n huts or something :-D )
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On January 15 2014 11:56 lopido wrote:
first time hearing about this guy.
so actually i dont care if he retires or not.
At least you did care enough to make a post ;-)
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On January 15 2014 08:49 GTR wrote:
He was really talented, but what stopped him moving to mainland Europe to play full-time if ping was such a big issue?
He needed a work visa which is very hard to get and quite expensive.
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Qualifier and pool boy extraordinaire. Be well.
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Was wondering why he wasn't really playing ladder that often the last month or so. Sad day in South African eSports. Now we need another South-African to cheer for. But like he said being a pro-gamer in this country is very hard. For 1 euro we have to pay R14.80, now imagine what travel cost is like.
GL HF in what ever your future plans are.
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maybe he'll go back to dota?
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Plenty more to come. I've been saying this all along, blizz needs to change whoever is managing the sc2. rorate kim to another game and get some new blood in else its only further downhill from here.
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Who is PandaTank.....
these foreign guys never were a progamer... let's go pay attention on Proleague, Code A and Code S.
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On January 15 2014 21:15 lessQQmorePEWPEW wrote:
Plenty more to come. I've been saying this all along, blizz needs to change whoever is managing the sc2. rorate kim to another game and get some new blood in else its only further downhill from here.
So what do you think that they should have done for this South African player? Fix the internet and charter planes?
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Sad news, I have fond memories of broadcasting your WCS Qualifier runs, and ruining people's headphones in my excitement every time you won. Sorry to see you go, and the Starcaft 2 scene is weaker for losing you.
Best of luck in your future.
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GG boet! You did us proud! Hope you stay in scene in some form.
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PandaTank, it was really nice to meet you with our SC2 teams and in Germany, you've done amazing in Starcraft II.
All the best for the future, feel free to catch me on Skype if you need anything
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On January 16 2014 02:37 IronWolf wrote:
GG boet! You did us proud! Hope you stay in scene in some form.
Now that is a true South African reply, nice one boet.
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Nice matches we had in both Dreamhack and WCS qualifier. Sad to see you leave, but all in all, good run you had. Good luck in the future mate!
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EPT
