Source: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=48785
Summary: Slayers is disbanding after their GSTL match against MVP on Nov. 3, 2012, KST
Bullet point translation provided by frequency('s friend) *Simple Listing format*:
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Current Situation
- MMA and Alicia have been demoted to B-team.
- Because of recent events surrounding Alicia, he will also be released (have not been told yet)
- Ryung is currently practicing at home. Yugioh originally also practiced at home and only practiced in the team house time to time.
- Crank didn't leave but has been released.
- Time was given to Puzzle, Coca and Min to think about their career and they have now switched to League of Legends
- Wanted to give up entering GSTL as half the main players are gone and even many players who were still bound by a contract refused to play. But remaining players were eager to play so still entered. We knew it was near impossible to win but we entered to give players experiences that they wanted. And this bonded the remaining players.
- Excluding the three players who wanted time off to consider their career, we entered the team with 4 B-team players and 4 A-team players. We excluded Alicia who avoided entering GSTL from the last season.
The reason why Boxer joined SKT
- We need to talk about how SlayerS started
- Federation and SlayerS didn't get along from the start. We had Intel as the main sponsor and started off being the wealthiest team. That's when the federation wanted us to join but we weren't sure about what their goals and what they were after so told the federation that we will decide to join when we observe surrounding situations. That's when GanZi incident happened
Ganzi incident
- At the time, Ganzi was in team IM. Ganzi told Knight_Seal (SlayerS coach) that he was interested in joining Slayers. Both me (Jessica) and BoxeR had no idea.
- IM told the federation and accused that SlayerS tried to steal one of their players and GanZi had been spreading bad rumours about IM. GanZi had 6 months ban from entering GSL so he was about to quit as a pro gamer
- Because we were never stealing GanZi, we helped GanZi to get to the bottom of this to clear out misunderstandings
- After talking to many other players including MVP and coaches/directors who were part of the federation (precursor to the eSF), all evidences collected suggested that GanZi was innocent. IM coach (Mr Gang) couldn't argue about anything so only snuck out of the situation by saying 'This was my understanding, GanZi - if you wanted to move why didn't you tell me personally?'
- SlayerS wes the second victim of this incident as the majority of people believed that we were stealing a player but nobody, including Mr Kang, apologized for anything. We lost our faith in the federation who does not seem to listen to both sides of the story and make a decision based on assumptions.
- After this incident we dropped our thoughts of joining in. There were no appealing reasons for us to join. But another event hit the federation - TSL coach Mr Lee
NASL incident
- NASL season 1 had started and many players including BoxeR were preparing to depart the country. Then Mr Won (Startale coach) contacted us that 'NASL is not paying flights for Korean players only, we should not participate in NASL with this sort of discrimination.' he hoped that SlayerS boycotts the tournament. However we were already ready for everything including flights and hotel accomodation as our sponsor paid to play.
- He claimed that all other teams will be boycotting but they all ended up participating anyway and Puma won the whole tournament.
- As NASL season 2 began, Mr Won once again asked us to boycott and we wanted to boycott this time. So we told Mr Won that if this boycott will help to reach a beneficial agreement between NASL and the federation, we will surely join boycotting.
- Mr Won promised us that both GomTV and the federation will claim their rights. However we heard nothing about this incident after. We asked Mr Won if there had been conversations between two parties, such as e-mails, but Mr Won said there wasn't anything like that/
- We understood NASL's position about needing deposits as many players who already disqualfied for the main stage avoid or ditch remaining matches. NASL season 3 started and because there were no attempts communicate from the federation and NASL. We entered season 3.
- Total 8 players made through the qualifiers, and that's when Mr Choi (MVP coach) contacted us. He expressed his regrets about us playing in NASL and mentioned that FXO entered for the qualifiers but dropped the thoughts immediately. He asked me to drop the 8 players from participating. I explained to Mr Choi that I only agreed to boycott season 2 as Mr Won promised me to show results or at least attempts to communicate to reach an agreement with NASL but have heard nothing from him. I explained the whole surrounding situations and asked him to tell other team coaches of the federation who do not know the situation but weirdly enough nothing was communicated between them.
- Even Mr Won who could have told other teams about how we thought, and when I asked him why he didn't communicate that to the federation. He claimed that he doesn't remember the conversation clearly that he didn't want to communicate something uncertain. I thought the federation was an absurd group.
- We have heard from other players from different teams, that they were told not to practise with SlayerS players and not even chat on ladder. Players who were good friends with each other had to use a different account to secretly help our players to practise. When I heard about this, I asked Mr Won and argued however he said confidently "it's petty but this is how far we will go to put restrictions on SlayerS'
- When I answered, that is ridiculous as we had not done anything wrong and this is destroying players personal friendship. And Mr Won simply replied 'this happens because you refused to join the federation and go on separate ways'. I made several claims to the federation but nobody answered me and players couldn't find practise partners.
- As I couldn't take this any longer, I phoned Mr Won and told "I don't want our players to have unfair disadvantages because of their team. I will disband the team so take our players to your team. However we will formally request you (the federation) to be liable for damages you caused to the team and our sponsors." And that is when we have finally gotten an e-mail saying that they will lift up the restriction. (Have shown it to the reporter who wrote this)
- But a former OGS player (who is now in a foreign team) told me that though the restriction was lifted, they still instructed players not to practise with SlayerS informally.
- This is the worst peak between SlayerS and other teams. Then they contacted us just before the eSports SC2 vision event. They wanted SlayerS to be the part of it. They have put restrictions on us because they didn't like how we were operating the team now they needed the BoxeR to be the significant figure. I have found what they were doing disgusting as they don't seem to have a sense of guilt. So I refused. They have never apologized me and I kept asking Mr Won whether the restriction has been lifted and he affirmed that there were no restrictions. But many players still told me that they were being instructed by the coach not to help us. I didn't even know who was telling the truth at this point.. I also was sad that players followed that instruction. But our players have been always helping other players from the team whenever they ask, this can be seen from their interviews.
- Sleep, who is not in any team right now, is suffering the same. Just because he is staying in our team house. As of now, it is still happening. Mr Won claims that the restriction have been lifted and if he wants to dispute what I am claiming now - do so formally. He won't be able to deny as we have a player who used to be part of the federation.
MMA incident
- We had a manager(initial J) who took care of our relationship with overseas partners/fans. J focused on working with the images BoxeR had. He was not a good friend with MMA to begin with but since MMA started to perform well, he always came to the studio when MMA played.
- He wanted to look after SlayerS official Facebook page and Twitter to communicate with foreign fans more. As he started that, that's when we promoted him to a manager position where he also took care of overseas partners. He also took care of negotiations between two of our sponsors with an extension.
- He kept reporting me that our demands and their demands never seem to meet. I asked myself 'why are the sponsors doing this to us now when we are performing better?' after reading what they were offering. So I gave up on the extension.
- That's when the problems rose, I was sure that I could run and manage the team without a sponsor so I decided to operate the team as we've been and planned to seek out for a new sponsor in the future. But I have noticed a weird atmosphere among players and manager J acted suspiciously. Turns out manager J was lying to me about what he was telling sponsors and he told players that I have embezzeled money and goods using reputations of the team and the players. Everyone knew that BoxeR was spending his own money to run the team and I don't know how players believed the manager who joined the team 2 months ago.
- MMA firmly believed that I have embezzled his money from the personal sponsor and I was very disappointed. I cared every single one of them sincerely and loved them but they believed the manager... I can't remember how long I cried. J manager offered players behind my back to form a new team with him that he could get more sponsors than I did. MMA did not confirm anything with any means and accepted that offer which he confessed me later.
- More shocking thing was that no players told me about this. I was going to formally sue the manager but I couldn't because I didn't want to disturb young players with a court case. If I had never found about this.. then players would have left the team without knowing.. That's when I lost my faith in MMA
- MMA and others, who often participated in a foriegn tournament, claimed that whenever he says hell to other players from the federation, they would ignore him and that they kept mocking SlayerS and themselves. MMA, Alicia, Crank and GanZi have all told me the same thing. And this was the cover-up reason he told others and the medias
- The reason why MMA got demoted was not that. I have explained why he was being bullied and mocked and got him comprehended. That's when Crank and MMA hung around alot after that. Crank visited me and complained that the team atmosphere was so bad, he felt pressured and stressed. That's when I asked BoxeR, who at the time was resting to sort out his shoulder problem, to stay in the team house and look after them.
- However, Crank complained once again that talking to the coach and BoxeR's presence did not make any difference and asked me what I actually did. I felt very sorry to him. My player is complaining and all I did didn't help him..
- Crank told me that because his neck is sore, he needed to rest. This was right before GSTL quarter finals. He said as he finished preparing for his game and he can pratise that only. I asked Cella if it's ok for him to go home and Cella told me that he has got his build order prepared for a map so he may go home.
- That weekend, he texted me requesting to be removed from the entry. Because he seemed so ill, I talked to him on messenger to see if he was ok. He didn't answer so I left a message saying 'Rest well physically and mentally peacefully and see you at the stadium'. He then texted Cella 'what is she doing this to me?' .. I don't know what I did
- That's when Cella told me that he wanted to quit and is not practising at home. He wanted to quit and rest and he has no intention of moving to another team so he begged me to release him from the contract. I had no intention of holding his back and I agreed that he wanted to rest so I let him go.
- But.. I was told by others that he is streaming and looking for a foreign team. So I asked him why he had to lie and what his unprofessional attitutes are for. I asked him if he knew why MMA wanted to leave the team. He answered 'it's because of me - when I told MMA that I want to move to another team because of the team atmosphere, MMA wanted to join me'. I asked MMA whether it was true and he denied.
- Recently, Crank rang me and screamed 'why are you relating me with Ganzi, Alicia and MMA's problem? do you want to ruin my progamer life?' I lost my words. I knew he wasn't happy with me and the team. But I asked 'Do you know where you are yelling at? I have looked after you and cared for you as the team owner and the manager for years'.. but he yelled back saying 'who do you think you are? where are you yelling at?'. Boxer who was right next to me got the phone off me after listening to him, but then he also yelled at BoxeR saying 'what were you doing during all this?' and then claimed that he will only play SC2 for this year and he just wanted to enjoy the game and that's why he left the team. I have this on recording and I will see what he does in the future. (T/N : I am sure that Crank can get into a trouble if he enters into another team as he lied to get out of the contract)
- BoxeR spent all his time and more than one hundred million(won) to grow the team and when players are mocking me and him, he was very shocked. Although we were in the GSTL finals, the atmosphere was the worst. I had to make a decision on Crank and MMA, who were affecting the team atmosphere, so I sent MMA back home and removed crank. I wanted to notify MMA but he never came back to the team house over weekends and never helped anyone for GSTL. Because we couldn't tell MMA, BoxeR and I told Ganzi about this. Ganzi used to joke around with me but during the time he couldn't even make an eye contact with me. I asked him what the problem was as I have explained to him about everything as MMA problems progressed.
- BoxeR told GanZi painfully that MMA is a cancer to this team at the moment and he wanted to GanZi to make the right decision. GanZi was very lost and he also told us that he will try to concentrate practising at home.
- MMA came back the next day, he probably have heard his expulsion from A-team from Ganzi. He had already packed all his belongings. BoxeR called MMA and started to talk but MMA cut him off and said there are nothing to talk about. BoxeR told him MMA had been moved to B-Team and to return home, MMA simply said there was no need as he is leaving the team.
- When BoxeR told him that he is still a SlayerS player who was bound by the contract, MMA claimed that it was not a contract but a slavery note. We have a clause determining the share of prize money, which already allows players to keep the majority, but we didn't even take our share of the prize money. We didn't write contracts to make money. When he called the contract a slavery note, I was simply lost. We had 5 players in total who had a contract including Ganzi and MMA.
Change of BoxeR's mind
- He was very disappointed when MMA called it a slavery note. He remembered how he started and how players were living more than ten years ago and he wanted to create a better environment for players. After everything he gave up to come to SC2 to fulfill his dream of remaining as a player and training new players who can shine in e-sports, what MMA did damaged BoxeR.
- He was preparing to come back as a player before the HOTS was released. However after he wanted to quit.
- His passion as a manager and as a player were diminishing fast. I had hard time watching him too. He taught the players a more than ten-year period of experience inside and outside the game but the players didn't seem to appreciate that. That's when I suggested him to coach in T1 for remaining players, who may be able to fire up his passion again. After a few days of consideration, he agreed.
Alicia and Ryung
- Ryung never received the highlight because of MMA but he was a good friend of MMA. When BoxeR cared for MMA the most, I cared for Ryung the most. When the incidents happened, I was worried about Ryung being influenced by that. When Ryung's wrists were bad. I sent him back home. He performed so much better. He never disappointed me. He tried his best in GSTL even in that atmosphere. But when Ryung behaved in a way MMA did, I was rather disappointed. When I asked him 'why are you being like that?' he also said 'I lost my faith in you at some point.' and when I asked him 'what have I done?' he couldn't answer
- As you might already know, Alicia was a B-team player. He was a hard worker who was also modest. But he started to change as he entered foreign tournaments. It's not a bad thing for a man to chase after money and fame but our team started with everything glamorously. When we resided in Yeouido (T/N: one of the richest area), we had both vans and cars to look after the kids. When our condition got better, we moved to Gimpo and we delegated more work to Cella. We were never hungry. If we started in hard conditions, maybe they would have been thankful as the conditions improve gradually but for us it was the other way around.
- Alicia's complaint was that no right person dropped him and picked him up from the airport when he entered foreign tournaments. The reason was that it's annoying to be picked up and dropped off by someone else but Cella. I just sighed when he told me this. I sent him up to take a break. His complaint was not something that I did wrong and I thought he lakced some common sense.
- Unless the player does not notify us by 6th October, the contract autumatically extends. He did not contact us showing his interest in quitting so it is an automatic extension. But he was expulsed from the team. Something happened very recently which I can't reveal. It's something that will be solved at a court and unforgivable but considering other people I won't reveal the details.
The reason why Clide went KT
- I felt unsecure about Clide hanging around with MMA. I wanted to create a career for him before he makes a mistake like MMA's. He still had a compulsory military service to carry out and his performance was not great. When KT wanted a coach, I persuaded him that there is another way of pursuing his dream. Was thinking of sending Cella at first but KT wanted a Terran coach so Clide agreed to go after a discussion.
Rumours surrounding SlayerS disbanding
- When was talking to Woongjin coach, Mr. Ryu (T/N: Former Slayers coach), he told me that he heard SlayerS was disbanding. His point was that the federation teams have told him. I don't know why the federation team had been saying that because at the time, disbanding was never decided.
- It seems like they are saying that because SlayerS is not part of player trade agreement, but on the paper we are included in. When the federation announced that they never told us that they will include us as part of it. I found out when it was announced. I do not know what we are included in there. From SlayerS point of view, the federation teams, kespa teams and foreign teams are the same. The agreement also never specify about korean players in foreign teams.
- If any of our players are needed by other teams, I will always transfer them. That's the only thing that I can do to care for remaining players. If there is an offer, I will send them. We have done this previously and even in the future, there won't be a transfer fee. I didn't create a team to benefit from transfer fees
- If the federation and SlayerS can't co-exist but both think about the players, that is the right thing to do. However as for MMA, I told him that if there is an offer from one of Kespa teams I will send him but he said he had been in a Kespa team before that he never wants to live like that and he also claimed that he is not going to the federation team either. Whether he was telling the truth, we will see.
- For players who didn't write a contract, I let them go if they wanted to. But players bound are by a contract are meant to leave after it is over, isn't it? But I still let them go, I let GanZi go even though he was on contract. I just want players to be honest and don't let me down by lying.. I, at least, want to see a professional ending.
Rumours about players who already transferred.
- There were no problems at all when GanZi, Teaja, Golden and Sleep left the team. Taeja requested his transfer so I accepted. He wanted to move to a different team and continue playing and that's when TeamLiquid made an offer. I am really happy and proud that he is doing well every time I watch his games. He is not a player who tries hard to practise alot. Considering his performance if MMA is a practising machine then Taeja is really a genius style. If he is trained under a right regime, I think he can be the best player.
Final words
- Revealing all detailed facts was the only way to remove assumptions and rumours about remaining players in the team. I have not heard any of the story I mentioned from a third party but a person/party himself. I have no idea how people will react to what I said. Will I find out more truth that I was not aware of or will I hear a totally different story.
- My conclusion is no matter who is right or right, bullying should not happen ever agame. One player from the federation team called Sleep, '슬레기 (SlayerS rubbish), just for staying in the house. If players can bully yea they can swear but considering the federation carried out manner lessons but themselves instructing their plyers to bully others? They need to think about how their hypocrite behaviours can affect young players.
- I could have just taken this as nothing happened. I have considered it for a long time. The federation says that I have no partnership elements. So have they behaved in such ways because we weren't partners? Power is what any federation must have to operate efficiently. But people who run the federation did not show the right mind set and abused the power.
- If they want e-sports to grow, rather than creating restrictions, they need to create a better space and environment for players. But it seems to me that what they are doing is making their behaviours look flash but only cared about maintaining their position. That's why I won't join the federation unless they are replaced with people who can be trusted.
- The reason why I am saying everything is, I do not want to hear a ridiculous claim like 'Now I understand why SlayerS didn't join the federation'. Fans who wondered about why we didn't join, the stories are the definite reason.
- This rant is not about how the team was unfairly treated. People will forget about SlayerS as we disappear but players need to live in their area. If rumours and bad nametags are following them,I wanted to clear out all that for them.
- This could be a fight that won't benefit anyone. But I had not lied at all. If they didn't tell my the truth, I hope you reveal them now.
All finished!! Thanks @kyungjunim for translating <3
- MMA and Alicia have been demoted to B-team.
- Because of recent events surrounding Alicia, he will also be released (have not been told yet)
- Ryung is currently practicing at home. Yugioh originally also practiced at home and only practiced in the team house time to time.
- Crank didn't leave but has been released.
- Time was given to Puzzle, Coca and Min to think about their career and they have now switched to League of Legends
- Wanted to give up entering GSTL as half the main players are gone and even many players who were still bound by a contract refused to play. But remaining players were eager to play so still entered. We knew it was near impossible to win but we entered to give players experiences that they wanted. And this bonded the remaining players.
- Excluding the three players who wanted time off to consider their career, we entered the team with 4 B-team players and 4 A-team players. We excluded Alicia who avoided entering GSTL from the last season.
The reason why Boxer joined SKT
- We need to talk about how SlayerS started
- Federation and SlayerS didn't get along from the start. We had Intel as the main sponsor and started off being the wealthiest team. That's when the federation wanted us to join but we weren't sure about what their goals and what they were after so told the federation that we will decide to join when we observe surrounding situations. That's when GanZi incident happened
Ganzi incident
- At the time, Ganzi was in team IM. Ganzi told Knight_Seal (SlayerS coach) that he was interested in joining Slayers. Both me (Jessica) and BoxeR had no idea.
- IM told the federation and accused that SlayerS tried to steal one of their players and GanZi had been spreading bad rumours about IM. GanZi had 6 months ban from entering GSL so he was about to quit as a pro gamer
- Because we were never stealing GanZi, we helped GanZi to get to the bottom of this to clear out misunderstandings
- After talking to many other players including MVP and coaches/directors who were part of the federation (precursor to the eSF), all evidences collected suggested that GanZi was innocent. IM coach (Mr Gang) couldn't argue about anything so only snuck out of the situation by saying 'This was my understanding, GanZi - if you wanted to move why didn't you tell me personally?'
- SlayerS wes the second victim of this incident as the majority of people believed that we were stealing a player but nobody, including Mr Kang, apologized for anything. We lost our faith in the federation who does not seem to listen to both sides of the story and make a decision based on assumptions.
- After this incident we dropped our thoughts of joining in. There were no appealing reasons for us to join. But another event hit the federation - TSL coach Mr Lee
NASL incident
- NASL season 1 had started and many players including BoxeR were preparing to depart the country. Then Mr Won (Startale coach) contacted us that 'NASL is not paying flights for Korean players only, we should not participate in NASL with this sort of discrimination.' he hoped that SlayerS boycotts the tournament. However we were already ready for everything including flights and hotel accomodation as our sponsor paid to play.
- He claimed that all other teams will be boycotting but they all ended up participating anyway and Puma won the whole tournament.
- As NASL season 2 began, Mr Won once again asked us to boycott and we wanted to boycott this time. So we told Mr Won that if this boycott will help to reach a beneficial agreement between NASL and the federation, we will surely join boycotting.
- Mr Won promised us that both GomTV and the federation will claim their rights. However we heard nothing about this incident after. We asked Mr Won if there had been conversations between two parties, such as e-mails, but Mr Won said there wasn't anything like that/
- We understood NASL's position about needing deposits as many players who already disqualfied for the main stage avoid or ditch remaining matches. NASL season 3 started and because there were no attempts communicate from the federation and NASL. We entered season 3.
- Total 8 players made through the qualifiers, and that's when Mr Choi (MVP coach) contacted us. He expressed his regrets about us playing in NASL and mentioned that FXO entered for the qualifiers but dropped the thoughts immediately. He asked me to drop the 8 players from participating. I explained to Mr Choi that I only agreed to boycott season 2 as Mr Won promised me to show results or at least attempts to communicate to reach an agreement with NASL but have heard nothing from him. I explained the whole surrounding situations and asked him to tell other team coaches of the federation who do not know the situation but weirdly enough nothing was communicated between them.
- Even Mr Won who could have told other teams about how we thought, and when I asked him why he didn't communicate that to the federation. He claimed that he doesn't remember the conversation clearly that he didn't want to communicate something uncertain. I thought the federation was an absurd group.
- We have heard from other players from different teams, that they were told not to practise with SlayerS players and not even chat on ladder. Players who were good friends with each other had to use a different account to secretly help our players to practise. When I heard about this, I asked Mr Won and argued however he said confidently "it's petty but this is how far we will go to put restrictions on SlayerS'
- When I answered, that is ridiculous as we had not done anything wrong and this is destroying players personal friendship. And Mr Won simply replied 'this happens because you refused to join the federation and go on separate ways'. I made several claims to the federation but nobody answered me and players couldn't find practise partners.
- As I couldn't take this any longer, I phoned Mr Won and told "I don't want our players to have unfair disadvantages because of their team. I will disband the team so take our players to your team. However we will formally request you (the federation) to be liable for damages you caused to the team and our sponsors." And that is when we have finally gotten an e-mail saying that they will lift up the restriction. (Have shown it to the reporter who wrote this)
- But a former OGS player (who is now in a foreign team) told me that though the restriction was lifted, they still instructed players not to practise with SlayerS informally.
- This is the worst peak between SlayerS and other teams. Then they contacted us just before the eSports SC2 vision event. They wanted SlayerS to be the part of it. They have put restrictions on us because they didn't like how we were operating the team now they needed the BoxeR to be the significant figure. I have found what they were doing disgusting as they don't seem to have a sense of guilt. So I refused. They have never apologized me and I kept asking Mr Won whether the restriction has been lifted and he affirmed that there were no restrictions. But many players still told me that they were being instructed by the coach not to help us. I didn't even know who was telling the truth at this point.. I also was sad that players followed that instruction. But our players have been always helping other players from the team whenever they ask, this can be seen from their interviews.
- Sleep, who is not in any team right now, is suffering the same. Just because he is staying in our team house. As of now, it is still happening. Mr Won claims that the restriction have been lifted and if he wants to dispute what I am claiming now - do so formally. He won't be able to deny as we have a player who used to be part of the federation.
MMA incident
- We had a manager(initial J) who took care of our relationship with overseas partners/fans. J focused on working with the images BoxeR had. He was not a good friend with MMA to begin with but since MMA started to perform well, he always came to the studio when MMA played.
- He wanted to look after SlayerS official Facebook page and Twitter to communicate with foreign fans more. As he started that, that's when we promoted him to a manager position where he also took care of overseas partners. He also took care of negotiations between two of our sponsors with an extension.
- He kept reporting me that our demands and their demands never seem to meet. I asked myself 'why are the sponsors doing this to us now when we are performing better?' after reading what they were offering. So I gave up on the extension.
- That's when the problems rose, I was sure that I could run and manage the team without a sponsor so I decided to operate the team as we've been and planned to seek out for a new sponsor in the future. But I have noticed a weird atmosphere among players and manager J acted suspiciously. Turns out manager J was lying to me about what he was telling sponsors and he told players that I have embezzeled money and goods using reputations of the team and the players. Everyone knew that BoxeR was spending his own money to run the team and I don't know how players believed the manager who joined the team 2 months ago.
- MMA firmly believed that I have embezzled his money from the personal sponsor and I was very disappointed. I cared every single one of them sincerely and loved them but they believed the manager... I can't remember how long I cried. J manager offered players behind my back to form a new team with him that he could get more sponsors than I did. MMA did not confirm anything with any means and accepted that offer which he confessed me later.
- More shocking thing was that no players told me about this. I was going to formally sue the manager but I couldn't because I didn't want to disturb young players with a court case. If I had never found about this.. then players would have left the team without knowing.. That's when I lost my faith in MMA
- MMA and others, who often participated in a foriegn tournament, claimed that whenever he says hell to other players from the federation, they would ignore him and that they kept mocking SlayerS and themselves. MMA, Alicia, Crank and GanZi have all told me the same thing. And this was the cover-up reason he told others and the medias
- The reason why MMA got demoted was not that. I have explained why he was being bullied and mocked and got him comprehended. That's when Crank and MMA hung around alot after that. Crank visited me and complained that the team atmosphere was so bad, he felt pressured and stressed. That's when I asked BoxeR, who at the time was resting to sort out his shoulder problem, to stay in the team house and look after them.
- However, Crank complained once again that talking to the coach and BoxeR's presence did not make any difference and asked me what I actually did. I felt very sorry to him. My player is complaining and all I did didn't help him..
- Crank told me that because his neck is sore, he needed to rest. This was right before GSTL quarter finals. He said as he finished preparing for his game and he can pratise that only. I asked Cella if it's ok for him to go home and Cella told me that he has got his build order prepared for a map so he may go home.
- That weekend, he texted me requesting to be removed from the entry. Because he seemed so ill, I talked to him on messenger to see if he was ok. He didn't answer so I left a message saying 'Rest well physically and mentally peacefully and see you at the stadium'. He then texted Cella 'what is she doing this to me?' .. I don't know what I did
- That's when Cella told me that he wanted to quit and is not practising at home. He wanted to quit and rest and he has no intention of moving to another team so he begged me to release him from the contract. I had no intention of holding his back and I agreed that he wanted to rest so I let him go.
- But.. I was told by others that he is streaming and looking for a foreign team. So I asked him why he had to lie and what his unprofessional attitutes are for. I asked him if he knew why MMA wanted to leave the team. He answered 'it's because of me - when I told MMA that I want to move to another team because of the team atmosphere, MMA wanted to join me'. I asked MMA whether it was true and he denied.
- Recently, Crank rang me and screamed 'why are you relating me with Ganzi, Alicia and MMA's problem? do you want to ruin my progamer life?' I lost my words. I knew he wasn't happy with me and the team. But I asked 'Do you know where you are yelling at? I have looked after you and cared for you as the team owner and the manager for years'.. but he yelled back saying 'who do you think you are? where are you yelling at?'. Boxer who was right next to me got the phone off me after listening to him, but then he also yelled at BoxeR saying 'what were you doing during all this?' and then claimed that he will only play SC2 for this year and he just wanted to enjoy the game and that's why he left the team. I have this on recording and I will see what he does in the future. (T/N : I am sure that Crank can get into a trouble if he enters into another team as he lied to get out of the contract)
- BoxeR spent all his time and more than one hundred million(won) to grow the team and when players are mocking me and him, he was very shocked. Although we were in the GSTL finals, the atmosphere was the worst. I had to make a decision on Crank and MMA, who were affecting the team atmosphere, so I sent MMA back home and removed crank. I wanted to notify MMA but he never came back to the team house over weekends and never helped anyone for GSTL. Because we couldn't tell MMA, BoxeR and I told Ganzi about this. Ganzi used to joke around with me but during the time he couldn't even make an eye contact with me. I asked him what the problem was as I have explained to him about everything as MMA problems progressed.
- BoxeR told GanZi painfully that MMA is a cancer to this team at the moment and he wanted to GanZi to make the right decision. GanZi was very lost and he also told us that he will try to concentrate practising at home.
- MMA came back the next day, he probably have heard his expulsion from A-team from Ganzi. He had already packed all his belongings. BoxeR called MMA and started to talk but MMA cut him off and said there are nothing to talk about. BoxeR told him MMA had been moved to B-Team and to return home, MMA simply said there was no need as he is leaving the team.
- When BoxeR told him that he is still a SlayerS player who was bound by the contract, MMA claimed that it was not a contract but a slavery note. We have a clause determining the share of prize money, which already allows players to keep the majority, but we didn't even take our share of the prize money. We didn't write contracts to make money. When he called the contract a slavery note, I was simply lost. We had 5 players in total who had a contract including Ganzi and MMA.
Change of BoxeR's mind
- He was very disappointed when MMA called it a slavery note. He remembered how he started and how players were living more than ten years ago and he wanted to create a better environment for players. After everything he gave up to come to SC2 to fulfill his dream of remaining as a player and training new players who can shine in e-sports, what MMA did damaged BoxeR.
- He was preparing to come back as a player before the HOTS was released. However after he wanted to quit.
- His passion as a manager and as a player were diminishing fast. I had hard time watching him too. He taught the players a more than ten-year period of experience inside and outside the game but the players didn't seem to appreciate that. That's when I suggested him to coach in T1 for remaining players, who may be able to fire up his passion again. After a few days of consideration, he agreed.
Alicia and Ryung
- Ryung never received the highlight because of MMA but he was a good friend of MMA. When BoxeR cared for MMA the most, I cared for Ryung the most. When the incidents happened, I was worried about Ryung being influenced by that. When Ryung's wrists were bad. I sent him back home. He performed so much better. He never disappointed me. He tried his best in GSTL even in that atmosphere. But when Ryung behaved in a way MMA did, I was rather disappointed. When I asked him 'why are you being like that?' he also said 'I lost my faith in you at some point.' and when I asked him 'what have I done?' he couldn't answer
- As you might already know, Alicia was a B-team player. He was a hard worker who was also modest. But he started to change as he entered foreign tournaments. It's not a bad thing for a man to chase after money and fame but our team started with everything glamorously. When we resided in Yeouido (T/N: one of the richest area), we had both vans and cars to look after the kids. When our condition got better, we moved to Gimpo and we delegated more work to Cella. We were never hungry. If we started in hard conditions, maybe they would have been thankful as the conditions improve gradually but for us it was the other way around.
- Alicia's complaint was that no right person dropped him and picked him up from the airport when he entered foreign tournaments. The reason was that it's annoying to be picked up and dropped off by someone else but Cella. I just sighed when he told me this. I sent him up to take a break. His complaint was not something that I did wrong and I thought he lakced some common sense.
- Unless the player does not notify us by 6th October, the contract autumatically extends. He did not contact us showing his interest in quitting so it is an automatic extension. But he was expulsed from the team. Something happened very recently which I can't reveal. It's something that will be solved at a court and unforgivable but considering other people I won't reveal the details.
The reason why Clide went KT
- I felt unsecure about Clide hanging around with MMA. I wanted to create a career for him before he makes a mistake like MMA's. He still had a compulsory military service to carry out and his performance was not great. When KT wanted a coach, I persuaded him that there is another way of pursuing his dream. Was thinking of sending Cella at first but KT wanted a Terran coach so Clide agreed to go after a discussion.
Rumours surrounding SlayerS disbanding
- When was talking to Woongjin coach, Mr. Ryu (T/N: Former Slayers coach), he told me that he heard SlayerS was disbanding. His point was that the federation teams have told him. I don't know why the federation team had been saying that because at the time, disbanding was never decided.
- It seems like they are saying that because SlayerS is not part of player trade agreement, but on the paper we are included in. When the federation announced that they never told us that they will include us as part of it. I found out when it was announced. I do not know what we are included in there. From SlayerS point of view, the federation teams, kespa teams and foreign teams are the same. The agreement also never specify about korean players in foreign teams.
- If any of our players are needed by other teams, I will always transfer them. That's the only thing that I can do to care for remaining players. If there is an offer, I will send them. We have done this previously and even in the future, there won't be a transfer fee. I didn't create a team to benefit from transfer fees
- If the federation and SlayerS can't co-exist but both think about the players, that is the right thing to do. However as for MMA, I told him that if there is an offer from one of Kespa teams I will send him but he said he had been in a Kespa team before that he never wants to live like that and he also claimed that he is not going to the federation team either. Whether he was telling the truth, we will see.
- For players who didn't write a contract, I let them go if they wanted to. But players bound are by a contract are meant to leave after it is over, isn't it? But I still let them go, I let GanZi go even though he was on contract. I just want players to be honest and don't let me down by lying.. I, at least, want to see a professional ending.
Rumours about players who already transferred.
- There were no problems at all when GanZi, Teaja, Golden and Sleep left the team. Taeja requested his transfer so I accepted. He wanted to move to a different team and continue playing and that's when TeamLiquid made an offer. I am really happy and proud that he is doing well every time I watch his games. He is not a player who tries hard to practise alot. Considering his performance if MMA is a practising machine then Taeja is really a genius style. If he is trained under a right regime, I think he can be the best player.
Final words
- Revealing all detailed facts was the only way to remove assumptions and rumours about remaining players in the team. I have not heard any of the story I mentioned from a third party but a person/party himself. I have no idea how people will react to what I said. Will I find out more truth that I was not aware of or will I hear a totally different story.
- My conclusion is no matter who is right or right, bullying should not happen ever agame. One player from the federation team called Sleep, '슬레기 (SlayerS rubbish), just for staying in the house. If players can bully yea they can swear but considering the federation carried out manner lessons but themselves instructing their plyers to bully others? They need to think about how their hypocrite behaviours can affect young players.
- I could have just taken this as nothing happened. I have considered it for a long time. The federation says that I have no partnership elements. So have they behaved in such ways because we weren't partners? Power is what any federation must have to operate efficiently. But people who run the federation did not show the right mind set and abused the power.
- If they want e-sports to grow, rather than creating restrictions, they need to create a better space and environment for players. But it seems to me that what they are doing is making their behaviours look flash but only cared about maintaining their position. That's why I won't join the federation unless they are replaced with people who can be trusted.
- The reason why I am saying everything is, I do not want to hear a ridiculous claim like 'Now I understand why SlayerS didn't join the federation'. Fans who wondered about why we didn't join, the stories are the definite reason.
- This rant is not about how the team was unfairly treated. People will forget about SlayerS as we disappear but players need to live in their area. If rumours and bad nametags are following them,I wanted to clear out all that for them.
- This could be a fight that won't benefit anyone. But I had not lied at all. If they didn't tell my the truth, I hope you reveal them now.
All finished!! Thanks @kyungjunim for translating <3
Pretty formatting of above translation by wo1fwood:
+ Show Spoiler [as explained by SlayerS_Jessica, team…] +
Current Situation
Ganzi incident
NASL incident
MMA incident
Change of BoxeR's mind
Alicia and Ryung
- MMA and Alicia have been demoted to B-team.
- Because of recent events surrounding Alicia, he will also be released (have not been told yet)
- Ryung is currently practicing at home. Yugioh originally also practiced at home and only practiced in the team house time to time.
- Crank didn't leave but has been released.
- Time was given to Puzzle, Coca and Min to think about their career and they have now switched to League of Legends
- Wanted to give up entering GSTL as half the main players are gone and even many players who were still bound by a contract refused to play. But remaining players were eager to play so still entered. We knew it was near impossible to win but we entered to give players experiences that they wanted. And this bonded the remaining players.
- Excluding the three players who wanted time off to consider their career, we entered the team with 4 B-team players and 4 A-team players. We excluded Alicia who avoided entering GSTL from the last season.
The reason why Boxer joined SKT - We need to talk about how SlayerS started
- Federation and SlayerS didn't get along from the start. We had Intel as the main sponsor and started off being the wealthiest team. That's when the federation wanted us to join but we weren't sure about what their goals and what they were after so told the federation that we will decide to join when we observe surrounding situations. That's when GanZi incident happened
Ganzi incident
- At the time, Ganzi was in team IM. Ganzi told Knight_Seal (SlayerS coach) that he was interested in joining Slayers. Both me (Jessica) and BoxeR had no idea.
- IM told the federation and accused that SlayerS tried to steal one of their players and GanZi had been spreading bad rumours about IM. GanZi had 6 months ban from entering GSL so he was about to quit as a pro gamer
- Because we were never stealing GanZi, we helped GanZi to get to the bottom of this to clear out misunderstandings
- After talking to many other players including MVP and coaches/directors who were part of the federation, all evidences collected suggested that GanZi was innocent. IM coach (Mr Gang) couldn't argue about anything so only snuck out of the situation by saying 'This was my understanding, GanZi - if you wanted to move why didn't you tell me personally?'
- SlayerS wes the second victim of this incident as the majority of people believed that we were stealing a player but nobody, including Mr Kang, apologized for anything. We lost our faith in the federation who does not seem to listen to both sides of the story and make a decision based on assumptions.
- After this incident we dropped our thoughts of joining in. There were no appealing reasons for us to join. But another event hit the federation - TSL coach Mr Lee
NASL incident
- NASL season 1 had started and many players including BoxeR were preparing to depart the country. Then Mr Won (Startale coach) contacted us that 'NASL is not paying flights for Korean players only, we should not participate in NASL with this sort of discrimination.' he hoped that SlayerS boycotts the tournament. However we were already ready for everything including flights and hotel accomodation as our sponsor paid to play.
- He claimed that all other teams will be boycotting but they all ended up participating anyway and Puma won the whole tournament.
- As NASL season 2 began, Mr Won once again asked us to boycott and we wanted to boycott this time. So we told Mr Won that if this boycott will help to reach a beneficial agreement between NASL and the federation, we will surely join boycotting.
- Mr Won promised us that both GomTV and the federation will claim their rights. However we heard nothing about this incident after. We asked Mr Won if there had been conversations between two parties, such as e-mails, but Mr Won said there wasn't anything like that/
- We understood NASL's position about needing deposits as many players who already disqualfied for the main stage avoid or ditch remaining matches. NASL season 3 started and because there were no attempts communicate from the federation and NASL. We entered season 3.
- Total 8 players made through the qualifiers, and that's when Mr Choi (MVP coach) contacted us. He expressed his regrets about us playing in NASL and mentioned that FXO entered for the qualifiers but dropped the thoughts immediately. He asked me to drop the 8 players from participating. I explained to Mr Choi that I only agreed to boycott season 2 as Mr Won promised me to show results or at least attempts to communicate to reach an agreement with NASL but have heard nothing from him. I explained the whole surrounding situations and asked him to tell other team coaches of the federation who do not know the situation but weirdly enough nothing was communicated between them.
- Even Mr Won who could have told other teams about how we thought, and when I asked him why he didn't communicate that to the federation. He claimed that he doesn't remember the conversation clearly that he didn't want to communicate something uncertain. I thought the federation was an absurd group.
- We have heard from other players from different teams, that they were told not to practise with SlayerS players and not even chat on ladder. Players who were good friends with each other had to use a different account to secretly help our players to practise. When I heard about this, I asked Mr Won and argued however he said confidently "it's petty but this is how far we will go to put restrictions on SlayerS'
- When I answered, that is ridiculous as we had not done anything wrong and this is destroying players personal friendship. And Mr Won simply replied 'this happens because you refused to join the federation and go on separate ways'. I made several claims to the federation but nobody answered me and players couldn't find practise partners.
- As I couldn't take this any longer, I phoned Mr Won and told "I don't want our players to have unfair disadvantages because of their team. I will disband the team so take our players to your team. However we will formally request you (the federation) to be liable for damages you caused to the team and our sponsors." And that is when we have finally gotten an e-mail saying that they will lift up the restriction. (Have shown it to the reporter who wrote this)
- But a former OGS player (who is now in a foreign team) told me that though the restriction was lifted, they still instructed players not to practise with SlayerS informally.
- This is the worst peak between SlayerS and other teams. Then they contacted us just before the eSports SC2 vision event. They wanted SlayerS to be the part of it. They have put restrictions on us because they didn't like how we were operating the team now they needed the BoxeR to be the significant figure. I have found what they were doing disgusting as they don't seem to have a sense of guilt. So I refused. They have never apologized me and I kept asking Mr Won whether the restriction has been lifted and he affirmed that there were no restrictions. But many players still told me that they were being instructed by the coach not to help us. I didn't even know who was telling the truth at this point.. I also was sad that players followed that instruction. But our players have been always helping other players from the team whenever they ask, this can be seen from their interviews.
- Sleep, who is not in any team right now, is suffering the same. Just because he is staying in our team house. As of now, it is still happening. Mr Won claims that the restriction have been lifted and if he wants to dispute what I am claiming now - do so formally. He won't be able to deny as we have a player who used to be part of the federation.
MMA incident
- We had a manager(initial J) who took care of our relationship with overseas partners/fans. J focused on working with the images BoxeR had. He was not a good friend with MMA to begin with but since MMA started to perform well, he always came to the studio when MMA played.
- He wanted to look after SlayerS official Facebook page and Twitter to communicate with foreign fans more. As he started that, that's when we promoted him to a manager position where he also took care of overseas partners. He also took care of negotiations between two of our sponsors with an extension.
- He kept reporting me that our demands and their demands never seem to meet. I asked myself 'why are the sponsors doing this to us now when we are performing better?' after reading what they were offering. So I gave up on the extension.
- That's when the problems rose, I was sure that I could run and manage the team without a sponsor so I decided to operate the team as we've been and planned to seek out for a new sponsor in the future. But I have noticed a weird atmosphere among players and manager J acted suspiciously. Turns out manager J was lying to me about what he was telling sponsors and he told players that I have embezzeled money and goods using reputations of the team and the players. Everyone knew that BoxeR was spending his own money to run the team and I don't know how players believed the manager who joined the team 2 months ago.
- MMA firmly believed that I have embezzled his money from the personal sponsor and I was very disappointed. I cared every single one of them sincerely and loved them but they believed the manager... I can't remember how long I cried. J manager offered players behind my back to form a new team with him that he could get more sponsors than I did. MMA did not confirm anything with any means and accepted that offer which he confessed me later.
- More shocking thing was that no players told me about this. I was going to formally sue the manager but I couldn't because I didn't want to disturb young players with a court case. If I had never found about this.. then players would have left the team without knowing.. That's when I lost my faith in MMA
- MMA and others, who often participated in a foriegn tournament, claimed that whenever he says hell to other players from the federation, they would ignore him and that they kept mocking SlayerS and themselves. MMA, Alicia, Crank and GanZi have all told me the same thing. And this was the cover-up reason he told others and the medias
- The reason why MMA got demoted was not that. I have explained why he was being bullied and mocked and got him comprehended. That's when Crank and MMA hung around alot after that. Crank visited me and complained that the team atmosphere was so bad, he felt pressured and stressed. That's when I asked BoxeR, who at the time was resting to sort out his shoulder problem, to stay in the team house and look after them.
- However, Crank complained once again that talking to the coach and BoxeR's presence did not make any difference and asked me what I actually did. I felt very sorry to him. My player is complaining and all I did didn't help him..
- Crank told me that because his neck is sore, he needed to rest. This was right before GSTL quarter finals. He said as he finished preparing for his game and he can pratise that only. I asked Cella if it's ok for him to go home and Cella told me that he has got his build order prepared for a map so he may go home.
- That weekend, he texted me requesting to be removed from the entry. Because he seemed so ill, I talked to him on messenger to see if he was ok. He didn't answer so I left a message saying 'Rest well physically and mentally peacefully and see you at the stadium'. He then texted Cella 'what is she doing this to me?' .. I don't know what I did
- That's when Cella told me that he wanted to quit and is not practising at home. He wanted to quit and rest and he has no intention of moving to another team so he begged me to release him from the contract. I had no intention of holding his back and I agreed that he wanted to rest so I let him go.
- But.. I was told by others that he is streaming and looking for a foreign team. So I asked him why he had to lie and what his unprofessional attitutes are for. I asked him if he knew why MMA wanted to leave the team. He answered 'it's because of me - when I told MMA that I want to move to another team because of the team atmosphere, MMA wanted to join me'. I asked MMA whether it was true and he denied.
- Recently, Crank rang me and screamed 'why are you relating me with Ganzi, Alicia and MMA's problem? do you want to ruin my progamer life?' I lost my words. I knew he wasn't happy with me and the team. But I asked 'Do you know where you are yelling at? I have looked after you and cared for you as the team owner and the manager for years'.. but he yelled back saying 'who do you think you are? where are you yelling at?'. Boxer who was right next to me got the phone off me after listening to him, but then he also yelled at BoxeR saying 'what were you doing during all this?' and then claimed that he will only play SC2 for this year and he just wanted to enjoy the game and that's why he left the team. I have this on recording and I will see what he does in the future. (T/N : I am sure that Crank can get into a trouble if he enters into another team as he lied to get out of the contract)
- BoxeR spent all his time and more than one hundred million(won) to grow the team and when players are mocking me and him, he was very shocked. Although we were in the GSTL finals, the atmosphere was the worst. I had to make a decision on Crank and MMA, who were affecting the team atmosphere, so I sent MMA back home and removed crank. I wanted to notify MMA but he never came back to the team house over weekends and never helped anyone for GSTL. Because we couldn't tell MMA, BoxeR and I told Ganzi about this. Ganzi used to joke around with me but during the time he couldn't even make an eye contact with me. I asked him what the problem was as I have explained to him about everything as MMA problems progressed.
- BoxeR told GanZi painfully that MMA is a cancer to this team at the moment and he wanted to GanZi to make the right decision. GanZi was very lost and he also told us that he will try to concentrate practising at home.
- MMA came back the next day, he probably have heard his expulsion from A-team from Ganzi. He had already packed all his belongings. BoxeR called MMA and started to talk but MMA cut him off and said there are nothing to talk about. BoxeR told him MMA had been moved to B-Team and to return home, MMA simply said there was no need as he is leaving the team.
- When BoxeR told him that he is still a SlayerS player who was bound by the contract, MMA claimed that it was not a contract but a slavery note. We have a clause determining the share of prize money, which already allows players to keep the majority, but we didn't even take our share of the prize money. We didn't write contracts to make money. When he called the contract a slavery note, I was simply lost. We had 5 players in total who had a contract including Ganzi and MMA.
Change of BoxeR's mind
- He was very disappointed when MMA called it a slavery note. He remembered how he started and how players were living more than ten years ago and he wanted to create a better environment for players. After everything he gave up to come to SC2 to fulfill his dream of remaining as a player and training new players who can shine in e-sports, what MMA did damaged BoxeR.
- He was preparing to come back as a player before the HOTS was released. However after he wanted to quit.
- His passion as a manager and as a player were diminishing fast. I had hard time watching him too. He taught the players a more than ten-year period of experience inside and outside the game but the players didn't seem to appreciate that. That's when I suggested him to coach in T1 for remaining players, who may be able to fire up his passion again. After a few days of consideration, he agreed.
Alicia and Ryung
- Ryung never received the highlight because of MMA but he was a good friend of MMA. When BoxeR cared for MMA the most, I cared for Ryung the most. When the incidents happened, I was worried about Ryung being influenced by that. When Ryung's wrists were bad. I sent him back home. He performed so much better. He never disappointed me. He tried his best in GSTL even in that atmosphere. But when Ryung behaved in a way MMA did, I was rather disappointed. When I asked him 'why are you being like that?' he also said 'I lost my faith in you at some point.' and when I asked him 'what have I done?' he couldn't answer
- As you might already know, Alicia was a B-team player. He was a hard worker who was also modest. But he started to change as he entered foreign tournaments. It's not a bad thing for a man to chase after money and fame but our team started with everything glamorously. When we resided in Yeouido (T/N: one of the richest area), we had both vans and cars to look after the kids. When our condition got better, we moved to Gimpo and we delegated more work to Cella. We were never hungry. If we started in hard conditions, maybe they would have been thankful as the conditions improve gradually but for us it was the other way around.
- Alicia's complaint was that no right person dropped him and picked him up from the airport when he entered foreign tournaments. The reason was that it's annoying to be picked up and dropped off by someone else but Cella. I just sighed when he told me this. I sent him up to take a break. His complaint was not something that I did wrong and I thought he lakced some common sense.
Mod edit: Mod approved full translation
+ Show Spoiler +
The reasons I am explaining the overall reasons that SlayerS is disbanding is because there might be speculation later that Boxer's appointment to head coach [of SKTelecom T1] is linked to SlayerS disbanding. If I don't explain the reasons and just disband the team, then it would disappoint the fans that supported us. Explaining why there was no other course but to disband is my obligatin to our remaining fans.
SlayerS will cease its operations of two years as of Novermber 3rd, with the GSTL match as its final game.
I'm truly thankful to the fans who cheered for us, and I feel terrible that we could not continue together for a long time as we had promised. However, I plan to continue to help our players find new roads, and our remaining players will do their best at the end. As a team owner and a head coach, I was sometimes reckless and sometimes strict... I only regret that I won't be able to remember the last two years as just good memories.
Again, I give my most sincere thanks to fans in Korea and around the world who cheered for us.
Before, I never planned to tell other people of internal happenings at SlayerS. Idle talk about such things would only cause confusion and speculation.
But now, I have decided the time has come to speak out. The things that must be said about SlayerS and the things that relate to the team must be said. So many things happened at once so it was difficult to summarize them all. There were some wounds too deep for me to be the bigger [wo]man and ignore.
The Current State of SlayerS
MMA and Alicia have been demoted to the B-Team, and Alicia will soon be released from the team for a reason that will remain unspecified (Alicia has not yet been informed). Ryung is playing from home right now. YuGiOh always played from home, occasionally dropping by the team house. Crank did not leave the the team – he was released by the team. Puzzle, CoCa, and Min were given time to contemplate their futures, and they selected League of Legends and are currently practicing to switch.
We were not planning to compete in the GSTL at first. With over half our main players out, there was a lot to think about. It was even more difficult as some players still on contract were refusing to play in the GSTL.
Still, the remaining players said they wanted to play. Even if we didn't win the championship, they said getting experience was important, and we decided to compete for that reason. Winning and losing is not important right now. I want to put importance on the fact that those who remained have banded together.
We went forth in GSTL with four B-team players, and the four remaining A-team players. Alicia, who avoided playing in GSTL since last season, was removed from the roster.
Why Boxer joined SK Telecom [Long]
To start talking about this, you have to go back to when SlayerS was founded. SlayerS got off on the wrong foot with the StarCraft2 Confederation [Note: The precursor to the present federation. The present federation is not a direct successor, but more of a 'spiritual successor']. SlayerS started off in the best financial situation, with a sponsor in Intel, and Boxer. In that situation S2Con wanted SlayerS to join. However, we didn't have a good idea about what kind of organization they were, so we decided to stay back and see how the situation played out.
The Ganzi Happening
At the time, Ganzi was on IM. Ganzi told Coach Seong Sang Hoon [Note: Former slayers Coach] that he wanted to join Boxer's team. Boxer and I hadn't heard about this at all.
Because of this, IM internally requested a GSL suspension from S2Con, though I hear it wasn't determined whether it was for 6 months or 12 months. At the time, Ganzi was in a situation where he was going to quit gaming, as the IM Head Coach Hirai had tried to get S2Con to punish Ganzi, claiming he was saying negative things about IM to outsiders, and that SlayerS had tried to poach Ganzi.
From our perspective, this was completely false, so had to find out the truth and clear the misunderstanding.
So we checked Ganzi's conversations with other people, and found that the player hadn't done anything wrong. Then, we met with the S2con coaches to find the truth of the situation, and presented evidence with both Ganzi and Mvp present. There, Hirai had nothing to say with all the evidence in front of him, and said that it seemed that it was his misunderstanding, and only asked Ganzi why he didn't just come to him in the first place.
I thought that maybe SlayerS would receive an apology as we had taken indirect damage, but there was no apology for affecting the image of a team they had nothing to do with. S2Con appeared to be an organization that took care of issues by just listening to one side of the story, without clarifying the truth.
Because of this, we thought S2con was an organization that didn't think about the position of the players, and decided not to join. There was no reason to. Later, when the scandal with coach Lee occurred, the problems of the S2con came to the forefront. Then, more things occurred.
NASL Deposits
NASL Season One was announced, and players such as Boxer were preparing to participate. At that time, Startale Head coach Won Jong Wook [Note: Present eSF chair]contacted us saying that NASL 'is not offering flights to Korean players who qualify' and that 'you we cannot participate in foreign tournaments under these conditions,' and 'it would be good if boycotted the tournament.' However, we had already finished our preparations (our sponsor had offered flights and lodging), and thus we had to participate.
It turned out that the other teams participated as well, and PuMa [then on TSL] won the tournament.
When NASL Season 2 began, there was another movement for a boycott, and SlayerS was asked to join. We decided to join the boycott, thinking that we could get a good result regarding the NASL deposit policy which we thought was unfair.
Mr. Won promised that S2con and GomTV would take care of it and get what was needed, and we did not participate in NASL Season 2. However, nothing was gained. I asked Mr. Won whether they tried to talk to NASL at all, to show me the e-mails that went back and forth, but he there wasn't anything of the sort.
Honestly, I do admit that there was some need for NASL to have a deposit policy. They hold their games over a long period of time, and players who are confirmed to miss out on the live finals sometimes decide to not show up for their games and give up. So I did understand the need to fine players for that kind of behavior.
When NASL Season 3 started, we were put in a dilemma again. We boycotted season two, but didn't gain anything, so I told our players to participate, and paid the deposits.
After eight SlayerS players made it through the preliminaries, I got a call from [Team MVP] Head Coach Choi Yoon Sang. His main point was that he was disappointed in us, and that FXO had participated in the preliminaries as well, only to give up participation. I was told to make our eight players give up their spots.
I explained that Mr. Won told me he would show me results, but as there had been none, there was no reason for us to keep boycotting. I also requested that he tell the other head coaches who might be confused, but strangely that word didn’t get around.
Mr. Won could have told the other teams of SlayerS' position, but instead the other teams continued to misunderstand. When I asked him why he didn't tell the other members of S2con, he said he didn't recall what we talked about during the Season 2 boycott. At that time, I could only think those running S2con were very irresponsible.
Because SlayerS competed in NASL, the S2con players were told to blacklist SlayerS players and not help them practice. It wasn't just a ban from practice, they were told to not even chat with them on the ladder.
Some players who were very friendly with our players used their alternate accounts to help them. When I met Mr. Won in person and asked him what was going on, he said 'it's cheap, but we plan to penalize SlayerS in at least this way.'
I complained to Mr.Won, taking player relationships into consideration, and because it was absurd that we were blacklisted for something that wasn't our fault. Mr.Won replied that these problems existed because we were off on our own, not helping them out or joining their organization.
Though I made many complaints, there was no solution to the problem where our players were refused practice, and it was tough for our players. It reached a point where at a tournament in the USA, I told Mr. Won that 'I don't want my players to suffer because of me. I'll disband the team, and you can take our players,' and that 'I'll take proper responsibility for the damages done to our sponsors by disbanding.'
Mr. Won replied that they would have a meeting, and he'd tell me the results. Only then did we get an e-mail saying that the practice-ban had been lifted. I don't know how they thought they could even have gone ahead with such a ban in the first place.
However, when I checked with our players, they said that the practice-ban was only lifted in word, and that it was actually still in place. In reality, S2con players were told to not practice with us, according to an ex-oGs player now on a foreign team.
Indeed, it was because of this issue that our relationship with S2con became irreparable distant. SlayerS and the other teams became like water and oil. When the Blizzard/KeSPA/SC2 vision conference was announced [Note: At the time, S2Con had been disbanded for some time, and there was no team organization for GSL teams], we received a request to join on so they could belatedly form the eSports federation.
I was at a loss for words, that they would arbitrarily penalize us, then ask us to join when they found they needed Boxer on their side. There was no end to my disappointment when they started to go on about being in this business together. Is that why they blacklisted our players from practicing? They were an organization with no semblance of conscience, and of course I turned down joining.
They never requested any reconciliation. When they were continuing to ostracize SlayerS and cutting us out of practice, Mr.Won would always tell me there was no such practice-ban whenever I contacted him. However, players say that the head coaches ordered them not to practice with our players, so I don't know what is the truth. It's laughable that players would accept such orders so easily.
At the same time, they selfishly asked our players to help them practice. You might have seen them thank our players in interviews on occasion.
Even Sleep, who isn't part of SlayerS but staying at our team house, received the same disadvantages, just because he was staying at our house. Even now, this pratice-ban is still going on. If Mr.Won can confidently say that the ban was lifted, and what I'm saying is false, then he's welcome to come out officially.
If you keep in mind that there's an ex-eSF player on SlayerS right now, then you won't be able to deny it. If you want a three way talk, I can tell you who informed us.
MMA
At one time, we had a Manager "J" who took care of our international activities. He was only interested in Boxer at first, and not close to MMA. But when MMA started getting good results, he started diligently going to MMA's games.
He said he would take care of twitter and facebook with foreign fans, so we gave that to him as well as making him our international manager. In January of this year, we started the process negotiating for contract extensions with our two sponsors.
Manager "J" took care of that, but strangely I received a report that our sponsors' needs and our team's direction weren't aligned. The offers we got from our sponsors made me wonder what was wrong, considering that I thought we were getting good results. In the end, we had to give up re-signing with our sponsors.
The problem started there. I though that even without a sponsorship, there wouldn't be problems running the team, and that we could work on sponsorships later. However, the team atmosphere seemed strangely disordered, and Manager "J"s actions became suspicious, so I decided to look into it.
What I found was shocking. "J" had been telling me and the sponsors different things. While he was telling me that things were going along well in a certain way, he was actually not even in contact with the sponsors at all, or handling the negotiations so poorly that they broke down.
The more ridiculous thing was that he was telling the players that I was receiving sponsorships in their names, and embezzling those funds. For certain, SlayerS was being financially and hardware wise through Boxer's personal sponsorship. The players all knew that Boxer was running the team out of own funds, and I could not understand how they could believe what that manager had to say.
In particular, I was disappointed in MMA for being swayed by "J"s claim that I had cut off a personal sponsorship that had been offered. I was crushed and disappointed that a player I had taken care of would believe a manager who had only been on for two months, and I don't even know how much I cried. "J" tried to take MMA and some other players to make a new team, and that he would find a sponsor. The important thing is that MMA was willing to along solely on "J"s word, and he only came clean to me once I found out what was going on.
It as also shocking that none of the players had told me this. At that time, I was seriously considering taking legal action against the manager, but I had to hold back because of the players. Though I was able to catch wind of what was going on and prevent it, if I hadn't, I might have seen the players suddenly leave the team one day. After this, MMA started talking about leaving team [Note: Or, 'talk of MMA leaving the team spread'] and my unconditional trust in MMA started to break.
According to MMA and other players who went to foreign tournaments often, other [Korean] players wouldn't respond to their greetings at tournaments, and would continue to ostracize them and speak negatively about SlayerS and myself. Also, they would receive advice to go to a foreign team, where they would receive a certain level of salary. MMA, Alicia, Crank, and Ryung said because of that, it was tough to compete in foreign tournaments as a SlayerS player.
That was the first, superficial reason MMA would claim he wanted to leave the team.
There's separate reason MMA was reprimanded by SlayerS. I had explained the practice boycott and NASL situation to him. Afterward, he started to hang out with Crank often. I don't know what kinds of conversations they had, but Crank began to say that the atmosphere was giving him stress. In a situation where players had to concentrate and practice for the GSTL, he said players weren't listening and not playing games. Boxer was resting with shoulder problems at the time, but it seemed like he should be with the team so I sent him to the house to look over the players.
Even then, Crank said that after talking with me and Boxer coming over, nothing changed in the team atmosphere, and asked what the heck was I doing. At the time, I felt very sorry towards Crank, and was annoyed that even though a player was expressing his discontent, nothing was changing.
Then one day, Crank said that he would go back home to rest because he had neck pain, that it was the early stages of a disc problem. This was just ahead of the GSTL Ro4. He asked if he could go home as he had a strategy prepared, and when I asked Cella, he said there was a specific build on a specific map he had prepared, so it would be okay if he practiced at home. However, Crank had told Cella that he wasn't going to practice when he went home, and asked him to keep it a secret.
That weekend, I got a text asking to remove him from the roster. I thought maybe it was because he was too hurt to play, so I sent him a message via instant messenger but there was no reply. so I left a message that I would leave him on the roster, and that I would see him at the studio if he could get his body and mind in good shape. But after, Crank sent a message to Cella asking why I would say something like that. Was what I said wrong....?
At that time, Cella told me that Crank had told him he was quitting the game. I asked Crank why he didn't tell me directly, and he said he just really wanted to rest, and that he had no thoughts of joining a foreign team or any other team, and to please just let him go. I had no thoughts of stopping him from leaving, so I agreed to allow him to leave SlayerS.
However, afterward, I heard that he was streaming and looking for a foreign team. When I asked him why he lied to me, saying it was unprofessional of him to do so. He asked in return, if I knew why MMA wanted to leave the team. Crank said it was because of himself, that when he wanted to leave the team because of the stressful team atmosphere, that MMA had said the should leave together. When I asked MMA for confirmation, he said it was not true.
Recently, Crank called me asking if I planned to ruin his career, and why I was tying the problems with Ryung, Alicia, and MMA to him. I was taken aback that he would yell at the old manager who helped him grow like that, and even more so when he talked back. Boxer couldn't just stand by and he took the phone, and Crank yelled at him as well, asking him what he had done.
Crank claims that he only planned to play SC2 till the end of this year, and he left the team so he could play the game comfortably, but we'll have to see if that's true. Just in case he wants to change his story later, I recorded his call.
Boxer was shocked that after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on team over two years, that he would end up in a situation where his own players were cursing him out. Even though we reached the GSTL finals, the team atmosphere was a mess. Something had to be done about Crank and MMA who were ruining team chemistry. MMA was sent home, and it was decided that Crank would be released from the team. We had to penalize players who were acting unacceptably as teammates, and muddying team chemistry.
We informed MMA of this, after which he changed, not returning to the team after the weekend, and refusing to help others practice for the GSTL. Boxer and I decided to talk to Ryung instead. Ryung and I had been close before, but after a certain point, he started finding it hard to even meet my gaze, so we wanted to find out what the problem was. MMA had said twice before that he wanted to leave the team, and that each time we had listened to him and tried to make him understand the situation, convincing him to stay with the team.
However, when this kind of problem happened again, it spread to teammates like Ryung, and we thought the situation was very severe. So Ryung wouldn't get swept along, and keep going down a straight path, Boxer painfully told Ryung that MMA was like a cancer right now, and that Ryung needed to think hard and decide. Ryung was probably conflicted as well, and we let him return home to play.
The next day, MMA returned to the house. It seemed that he had heard from Ryung already, as he had already packed his things before Boxer even spoke with him. When Boxer tried to talk to MMA, MMA said that there wasn't any need to talk any further. When Boxer told MMA he was being demoted to the 2nd team and being sent home, MMA said that there was no need, and that he could just leave the team.
When Boxer told him he's still a player under contract, MMA said that wasn't a rea contract, but just a slave contract. The contracts we have for our players are for presenting to sponsors, and have 1 year durations with a prize winnings share, but in actuality we didn't take a cut, as the purpose of the contracts was never to make money. In the moment he called that a slave contract, we thought it to be absurd. The player who had signed contracts were 5 players, including MMA and Ganzi.
Boxer's Change of Heart
First, we were very hurt to hear the contracts be called slave contracts. Boxer knew how hard it was for players over ten years ago, and he tried to create the best environment possible for his players. He received a lot of criticism when he left his origins for StarCraft2, but it was his dream to continue as a player and grow new players for the future of esports. Thus, he was crushed when he heard that from MMA, a player he had taken close care of. At the time, Boxer had been preparing to return as a player before the release of Heart of the Swarm, but he changed his mind towards quitting the game.
Boxer was quickly losing his passion as player and manager, and it was tough on me as I watched it happen. He was teaching the players his 10 + years of experience in and outside the game, but the players weren't readily accepting it. So I suggested something that would help him, help T1, and perhaps motivate the remaining players on SlayerS. After thinking about it for a few days, Boxer decided that would be the best course of action.
Alicia and Ryung
Ryung was in MMA's shadow, and at the same time he was close with him. If Boxer was the one taking care of MMA, then I was the one who took care of Ryung. When the trouble occurred, there was a need to keep Ryung away from MMA lest he become influenced, and with him having wrist problems, I decided to send him home, where he happened to start playing well. Ryung never disappointed us, and he did his best in the GSTL despite the poor team atmosphere. Even so, the way Ryung followed MMA for no reason was disappointing. When I asked him why he took after MMA, he said that he had lost his trust after a certain point. When I asked him what I had done wrong, he couldn't answer.
As has been mentioned in previous interviews, Alicia wasn't with SlayerS from the start, but a player who joined on as a practice partner. Whatever we told him to do, he was a diligent and model player. However, he started to change once he started going to foreign tournaments. It's not bad for a person to seek fame and fortune, but our team started off in good conditions with everything in place. In our old team house we had a team van and car, and took care of the players. After we moved the team house, Cella took on a bigger role. From the beginning, there wasn't any 'hungry' spirit on the team. If we had started out poor, then players would have appreciated an improved situation, but since we started off well, players became discontent thinking things were growing worse.
Alicia's discontent was that when he came home from foreign tournaments, that no one would come greet him at the airport. That the coach wouldn't take him directly to the studio to play games. When I heard those complaints, I could only sigh, and I sent him home. I don't think I was wrong, those reasons made me think he didn't even have the basics down.
Normally, if nothing happened before October 6th, his contract would have been automatically extended. Alicia didn't contact us otherwise, and effectively his contract would have been extended. However, Alicia will be released from the team, as something unrevealable has happened lately.
It's a legal problem that could be fatal for his career, and something that cannot be forgiven. However, considering the people involved, I will not say. If there are any further problems in the future, we will see then.
The reason Clide was sent to KT
I felt uneasy when Clide started to hang out with MMA. So he wouldn't get swept away like MMA, I decided to make a path for Clide. He was in a situation where he wasn't getting results, and he had to go to the army, and I felt bad looking on. I convinced him there was another way for him achieve his reams, and conveniently, KT was looking to acquire a coach from us. At first I thought of Cella, but they wanted a Terran coach, thus I convinced Clide and sent him.
External rumors regarding SlayerS disbanding
Talking to Coach Ryu Won of Woongjin [Note: Former Slayers coach], he said he had heard rumors of SlayerS disbanding. He key was that he had heard it from a eSF source. I couldn't tell why eSF teams would go around talking about such things, as there was nothing confirmed at the time.
I think perhaps such talk came because SlayerS was left out of the eSF-KeSPA no-player-trade agreement, but in reality SlayerS was not left out of the agreement. When eSF made the announcement, they did not inform us of anyhting. We did not know of the agreement at all, and only learned of it when it was announced. From the eSF or KeSPA perspective, what makes SlayerS different from a foreign team? There aren't even any rules regarding Korean players no foreign teams.
If any team wants our players, then I will send them without hesitation. That's the last thing I can do for our remaining players. If I get an offer, I plan to let SlayerS players go. Just as in the past, I will not request a transfer fee. The purpose of the team was never to collect that kind of money. If we can't get a big corporate sponsor as was the our original hope, then I think this is the right way for the players' future.
However, I did tell MMA in the past that if he had a chance to join a KeSPA team and receive a salary, I would let him go. But at the time, he he assured me that he would rather than die than go to a KeSPA team, as he had already spent time on a KeSPA team and wasn't confident that he could handle that life again. He said that he would never compete in the KeSPA Proleague. We'll see if that turns out to be true.
Obviously, there's no plan to hold on to players who didn't sign contracts, and I will let any contracted players go. The contracted players would go to teams they want anyone once their contracts are up. Ganzi had signed a contract, but we allowed him to leave because he desired it. All I want from my players is for them not do anything that would betray my faith in them, and finish [their time on SlayerS] like pros.
The contracts end in November. It's possible that someone could take issue with something in the contract, or say that I did not fulfill a condition to try to get out of it. However, there's nothing the team didn't keep, and the team didn't even take 10 won from the players.
In fact, the funds allotted to boxer were spread to all the players in the team, and invested in the team. From what I hear, Alicia has already decided on a foreign team to join, but he won't say anything himself so I can't confirm. I hope he doesn't act the same way on other teams.
Normally, sponsorships are needed to run a team smoothly. However, even without a sponsorship, it's possible to invest in a team and run it like I have. There were opportunities to be had under great conditions, but they've all gone away because of a few selfish players.
This is something I've heard lately, but there's a rumor that I've been running the team by collecting money from the players. Externally, everyone knows we had been running with Boxer's personal sponsorship, but I think that maybe the rumor seemed credible since it was started by someone from the inside. I speculate that it's a harmful rumor started about me by someone looking to leave the team.
In reality, there were some eSF teams that ran like an amateur team house, collecting monthly fees from their players. Later, the eSF made rules so that teams could not collect money from players, but I knew of a team that still collected money from its players under a different bank account. Now they are sponsored, so it isn't that way anymore.
Still, you need sponsorships to run a team. It's already like bashing your head against a wall. Already, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent operating the team. It's not something that was started thinking to make a profit, but it's sad since I hoped things would work out for everyone.
The reason the team kept running was because of the remaining players. It's true that results weren't good lately, but because there were fans cheering SlayerS on, it wasn't a decision that could be made easily. It was possible that there wouldn't be enough players to fill a GSTL roster, and it was unsure how the the situation would change. However, it was time to make a decision.
Thinking about it, it doesn't make sense. But when we started, the goal was to make an amazing team with Boxer at the head. Now, Boxer is gone, and I have to be a mother to the players who trust and follow me. I hope I don't do anything that betrays their faith in me.
Misunderstandings about SlayerS players who moved to other teams.
Ganzi, TaeJa, Golden, and Sleep are cases where players left the team with no problems. In TaeJa's case, he requested that he be allowed to leave, and it was accepted. He wanted to play on a different team, not necessarily a foreign team, but in the process TeamLiquid sent a request. Whenever I see him doing well on his new team, I'm proud. He's not the style of player that practices a lot or puts in a lot of effort. However, seeing him play so well despite that makes me think that while MMA is the type of player that gets it done through effort, TaeJa is really a genius kind of player. If he could train under a system, then I think he could become the best player.
In conclusion
The reason this was all explained in detail is that the facts must be made clear if the remaining players are to stay free from speculation and misunderstanding. All of these things, I have heard from the parties themselves. When the read this article today, I don't know how they will react. I'll see whether they'll reveal some truths that I didn't know, that I hadn't been told, or whether they'll say some completely different nonsense.
In conclusion, regardless of who's right and wrong, the ostracizing of a team shouldn’t happen again. Recently, an eSF player on a smurf account messaged Sleep and called him 'SlayerS Trash.' The eSF needs to think about what kind of affect they're having on young players, when they're doing hypocritical enough to hold educational seminars for pro-gamers, while instructing them to pick on a specific team at the same time.
I could have buried all of this quietly. I thought about it for a long time. The eSF says I have no sense of being in it together. Did you do those things because you believe we're in it together? I do believe that one organization taking power and forging the way is needed. However, those running the eSF don't even have the right basic mindset, and are only interesting in exercising their power.
If eSports is to advance, we don't need restrictive agreements, we need a space where players can act more freely. That's just on the outside. In reality, everyone's busy taking care of themselves, so unless the management becomes something I can trust, I have no interest in joining the eSF.
I'm saying these things because I want people to stop saying ridiculous things, like Boxer joining SK is related to SlayerS not being part of the eSF. What I stated is the reason SlayerS did not join the eSF.
The reason I'm saying all these things isn't because we're sore. Once the team is gone, it's going to be gone from people's memories anyway. However, the players still have to go on. I wanted to clear up all the rumors that would follow them around like a tag. That's also the reason I stayed quiet for so long when our fans wanted to know what was going on.
It could become a messy fight, but I haven't lied about a single thing.
If there's anything someone hasn't told me, then I want them to reveal it.
SlayerS will cease its operations of two years as of Novermber 3rd, with the GSTL match as its final game.
I'm truly thankful to the fans who cheered for us, and I feel terrible that we could not continue together for a long time as we had promised. However, I plan to continue to help our players find new roads, and our remaining players will do their best at the end. As a team owner and a head coach, I was sometimes reckless and sometimes strict... I only regret that I won't be able to remember the last two years as just good memories.
Again, I give my most sincere thanks to fans in Korea and around the world who cheered for us.
Before, I never planned to tell other people of internal happenings at SlayerS. Idle talk about such things would only cause confusion and speculation.
But now, I have decided the time has come to speak out. The things that must be said about SlayerS and the things that relate to the team must be said. So many things happened at once so it was difficult to summarize them all. There were some wounds too deep for me to be the bigger [wo]man and ignore.
The Current State of SlayerS
MMA and Alicia have been demoted to the B-Team, and Alicia will soon be released from the team for a reason that will remain unspecified (Alicia has not yet been informed). Ryung is playing from home right now. YuGiOh always played from home, occasionally dropping by the team house. Crank did not leave the the team – he was released by the team. Puzzle, CoCa, and Min were given time to contemplate their futures, and they selected League of Legends and are currently practicing to switch.
We were not planning to compete in the GSTL at first. With over half our main players out, there was a lot to think about. It was even more difficult as some players still on contract were refusing to play in the GSTL.
Still, the remaining players said they wanted to play. Even if we didn't win the championship, they said getting experience was important, and we decided to compete for that reason. Winning and losing is not important right now. I want to put importance on the fact that those who remained have banded together.
We went forth in GSTL with four B-team players, and the four remaining A-team players. Alicia, who avoided playing in GSTL since last season, was removed from the roster.
Why Boxer joined SK Telecom [Long]
To start talking about this, you have to go back to when SlayerS was founded. SlayerS got off on the wrong foot with the StarCraft2 Confederation [Note: The precursor to the present federation. The present federation is not a direct successor, but more of a 'spiritual successor']. SlayerS started off in the best financial situation, with a sponsor in Intel, and Boxer. In that situation S2Con wanted SlayerS to join. However, we didn't have a good idea about what kind of organization they were, so we decided to stay back and see how the situation played out.
The Ganzi Happening
At the time, Ganzi was on IM. Ganzi told Coach Seong Sang Hoon [Note: Former slayers Coach] that he wanted to join Boxer's team. Boxer and I hadn't heard about this at all.
Because of this, IM internally requested a GSL suspension from S2Con, though I hear it wasn't determined whether it was for 6 months or 12 months. At the time, Ganzi was in a situation where he was going to quit gaming, as the IM Head Coach Hirai had tried to get S2Con to punish Ganzi, claiming he was saying negative things about IM to outsiders, and that SlayerS had tried to poach Ganzi.
From our perspective, this was completely false, so had to find out the truth and clear the misunderstanding.
So we checked Ganzi's conversations with other people, and found that the player hadn't done anything wrong. Then, we met with the S2con coaches to find the truth of the situation, and presented evidence with both Ganzi and Mvp present. There, Hirai had nothing to say with all the evidence in front of him, and said that it seemed that it was his misunderstanding, and only asked Ganzi why he didn't just come to him in the first place.
I thought that maybe SlayerS would receive an apology as we had taken indirect damage, but there was no apology for affecting the image of a team they had nothing to do with. S2Con appeared to be an organization that took care of issues by just listening to one side of the story, without clarifying the truth.
Because of this, we thought S2con was an organization that didn't think about the position of the players, and decided not to join. There was no reason to. Later, when the scandal with coach Lee occurred, the problems of the S2con came to the forefront. Then, more things occurred.
NASL Deposits
NASL Season One was announced, and players such as Boxer were preparing to participate. At that time, Startale Head coach Won Jong Wook [Note: Present eSF chair]contacted us saying that NASL 'is not offering flights to Korean players who qualify' and that 'you we cannot participate in foreign tournaments under these conditions,' and 'it would be good if boycotted the tournament.' However, we had already finished our preparations (our sponsor had offered flights and lodging), and thus we had to participate.
It turned out that the other teams participated as well, and PuMa [then on TSL] won the tournament.
When NASL Season 2 began, there was another movement for a boycott, and SlayerS was asked to join. We decided to join the boycott, thinking that we could get a good result regarding the NASL deposit policy which we thought was unfair.
Mr. Won promised that S2con and GomTV would take care of it and get what was needed, and we did not participate in NASL Season 2. However, nothing was gained. I asked Mr. Won whether they tried to talk to NASL at all, to show me the e-mails that went back and forth, but he there wasn't anything of the sort.
Honestly, I do admit that there was some need for NASL to have a deposit policy. They hold their games over a long period of time, and players who are confirmed to miss out on the live finals sometimes decide to not show up for their games and give up. So I did understand the need to fine players for that kind of behavior.
When NASL Season 3 started, we were put in a dilemma again. We boycotted season two, but didn't gain anything, so I told our players to participate, and paid the deposits.
After eight SlayerS players made it through the preliminaries, I got a call from [Team MVP] Head Coach Choi Yoon Sang. His main point was that he was disappointed in us, and that FXO had participated in the preliminaries as well, only to give up participation. I was told to make our eight players give up their spots.
I explained that Mr. Won told me he would show me results, but as there had been none, there was no reason for us to keep boycotting. I also requested that he tell the other head coaches who might be confused, but strangely that word didn’t get around.
Mr. Won could have told the other teams of SlayerS' position, but instead the other teams continued to misunderstand. When I asked him why he didn't tell the other members of S2con, he said he didn't recall what we talked about during the Season 2 boycott. At that time, I could only think those running S2con were very irresponsible.
Because SlayerS competed in NASL, the S2con players were told to blacklist SlayerS players and not help them practice. It wasn't just a ban from practice, they were told to not even chat with them on the ladder.
Some players who were very friendly with our players used their alternate accounts to help them. When I met Mr. Won in person and asked him what was going on, he said 'it's cheap, but we plan to penalize SlayerS in at least this way.'
I complained to Mr.Won, taking player relationships into consideration, and because it was absurd that we were blacklisted for something that wasn't our fault. Mr.Won replied that these problems existed because we were off on our own, not helping them out or joining their organization.
Though I made many complaints, there was no solution to the problem where our players were refused practice, and it was tough for our players. It reached a point where at a tournament in the USA, I told Mr. Won that 'I don't want my players to suffer because of me. I'll disband the team, and you can take our players,' and that 'I'll take proper responsibility for the damages done to our sponsors by disbanding.'
Mr. Won replied that they would have a meeting, and he'd tell me the results. Only then did we get an e-mail saying that the practice-ban had been lifted. I don't know how they thought they could even have gone ahead with such a ban in the first place.
However, when I checked with our players, they said that the practice-ban was only lifted in word, and that it was actually still in place. In reality, S2con players were told to not practice with us, according to an ex-oGs player now on a foreign team.
Indeed, it was because of this issue that our relationship with S2con became irreparable distant. SlayerS and the other teams became like water and oil. When the Blizzard/KeSPA/SC2 vision conference was announced [Note: At the time, S2Con had been disbanded for some time, and there was no team organization for GSL teams], we received a request to join on so they could belatedly form the eSports federation.
I was at a loss for words, that they would arbitrarily penalize us, then ask us to join when they found they needed Boxer on their side. There was no end to my disappointment when they started to go on about being in this business together. Is that why they blacklisted our players from practicing? They were an organization with no semblance of conscience, and of course I turned down joining.
They never requested any reconciliation. When they were continuing to ostracize SlayerS and cutting us out of practice, Mr.Won would always tell me there was no such practice-ban whenever I contacted him. However, players say that the head coaches ordered them not to practice with our players, so I don't know what is the truth. It's laughable that players would accept such orders so easily.
At the same time, they selfishly asked our players to help them practice. You might have seen them thank our players in interviews on occasion.
Even Sleep, who isn't part of SlayerS but staying at our team house, received the same disadvantages, just because he was staying at our house. Even now, this pratice-ban is still going on. If Mr.Won can confidently say that the ban was lifted, and what I'm saying is false, then he's welcome to come out officially.
If you keep in mind that there's an ex-eSF player on SlayerS right now, then you won't be able to deny it. If you want a three way talk, I can tell you who informed us.
MMA
At one time, we had a Manager "J" who took care of our international activities. He was only interested in Boxer at first, and not close to MMA. But when MMA started getting good results, he started diligently going to MMA's games.
He said he would take care of twitter and facebook with foreign fans, so we gave that to him as well as making him our international manager. In January of this year, we started the process negotiating for contract extensions with our two sponsors.
Manager "J" took care of that, but strangely I received a report that our sponsors' needs and our team's direction weren't aligned. The offers we got from our sponsors made me wonder what was wrong, considering that I thought we were getting good results. In the end, we had to give up re-signing with our sponsors.
The problem started there. I though that even without a sponsorship, there wouldn't be problems running the team, and that we could work on sponsorships later. However, the team atmosphere seemed strangely disordered, and Manager "J"s actions became suspicious, so I decided to look into it.
What I found was shocking. "J" had been telling me and the sponsors different things. While he was telling me that things were going along well in a certain way, he was actually not even in contact with the sponsors at all, or handling the negotiations so poorly that they broke down.
The more ridiculous thing was that he was telling the players that I was receiving sponsorships in their names, and embezzling those funds. For certain, SlayerS was being financially and hardware wise through Boxer's personal sponsorship. The players all knew that Boxer was running the team out of own funds, and I could not understand how they could believe what that manager had to say.
In particular, I was disappointed in MMA for being swayed by "J"s claim that I had cut off a personal sponsorship that had been offered. I was crushed and disappointed that a player I had taken care of would believe a manager who had only been on for two months, and I don't even know how much I cried. "J" tried to take MMA and some other players to make a new team, and that he would find a sponsor. The important thing is that MMA was willing to along solely on "J"s word, and he only came clean to me once I found out what was going on.
It as also shocking that none of the players had told me this. At that time, I was seriously considering taking legal action against the manager, but I had to hold back because of the players. Though I was able to catch wind of what was going on and prevent it, if I hadn't, I might have seen the players suddenly leave the team one day. After this, MMA started talking about leaving team [Note: Or, 'talk of MMA leaving the team spread'] and my unconditional trust in MMA started to break.
According to MMA and other players who went to foreign tournaments often, other [Korean] players wouldn't respond to their greetings at tournaments, and would continue to ostracize them and speak negatively about SlayerS and myself. Also, they would receive advice to go to a foreign team, where they would receive a certain level of salary. MMA, Alicia, Crank, and Ryung said because of that, it was tough to compete in foreign tournaments as a SlayerS player.
That was the first, superficial reason MMA would claim he wanted to leave the team.
There's separate reason MMA was reprimanded by SlayerS. I had explained the practice boycott and NASL situation to him. Afterward, he started to hang out with Crank often. I don't know what kinds of conversations they had, but Crank began to say that the atmosphere was giving him stress. In a situation where players had to concentrate and practice for the GSTL, he said players weren't listening and not playing games. Boxer was resting with shoulder problems at the time, but it seemed like he should be with the team so I sent him to the house to look over the players.
Even then, Crank said that after talking with me and Boxer coming over, nothing changed in the team atmosphere, and asked what the heck was I doing. At the time, I felt very sorry towards Crank, and was annoyed that even though a player was expressing his discontent, nothing was changing.
Then one day, Crank said that he would go back home to rest because he had neck pain, that it was the early stages of a disc problem. This was just ahead of the GSTL Ro4. He asked if he could go home as he had a strategy prepared, and when I asked Cella, he said there was a specific build on a specific map he had prepared, so it would be okay if he practiced at home. However, Crank had told Cella that he wasn't going to practice when he went home, and asked him to keep it a secret.
That weekend, I got a text asking to remove him from the roster. I thought maybe it was because he was too hurt to play, so I sent him a message via instant messenger but there was no reply. so I left a message that I would leave him on the roster, and that I would see him at the studio if he could get his body and mind in good shape. But after, Crank sent a message to Cella asking why I would say something like that. Was what I said wrong....?
At that time, Cella told me that Crank had told him he was quitting the game. I asked Crank why he didn't tell me directly, and he said he just really wanted to rest, and that he had no thoughts of joining a foreign team or any other team, and to please just let him go. I had no thoughts of stopping him from leaving, so I agreed to allow him to leave SlayerS.
However, afterward, I heard that he was streaming and looking for a foreign team. When I asked him why he lied to me, saying it was unprofessional of him to do so. He asked in return, if I knew why MMA wanted to leave the team. Crank said it was because of himself, that when he wanted to leave the team because of the stressful team atmosphere, that MMA had said the should leave together. When I asked MMA for confirmation, he said it was not true.
Recently, Crank called me asking if I planned to ruin his career, and why I was tying the problems with Ryung, Alicia, and MMA to him. I was taken aback that he would yell at the old manager who helped him grow like that, and even more so when he talked back. Boxer couldn't just stand by and he took the phone, and Crank yelled at him as well, asking him what he had done.
Crank claims that he only planned to play SC2 till the end of this year, and he left the team so he could play the game comfortably, but we'll have to see if that's true. Just in case he wants to change his story later, I recorded his call.
Boxer was shocked that after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on team over two years, that he would end up in a situation where his own players were cursing him out. Even though we reached the GSTL finals, the team atmosphere was a mess. Something had to be done about Crank and MMA who were ruining team chemistry. MMA was sent home, and it was decided that Crank would be released from the team. We had to penalize players who were acting unacceptably as teammates, and muddying team chemistry.
We informed MMA of this, after which he changed, not returning to the team after the weekend, and refusing to help others practice for the GSTL. Boxer and I decided to talk to Ryung instead. Ryung and I had been close before, but after a certain point, he started finding it hard to even meet my gaze, so we wanted to find out what the problem was. MMA had said twice before that he wanted to leave the team, and that each time we had listened to him and tried to make him understand the situation, convincing him to stay with the team.
However, when this kind of problem happened again, it spread to teammates like Ryung, and we thought the situation was very severe. So Ryung wouldn't get swept along, and keep going down a straight path, Boxer painfully told Ryung that MMA was like a cancer right now, and that Ryung needed to think hard and decide. Ryung was probably conflicted as well, and we let him return home to play.
The next day, MMA returned to the house. It seemed that he had heard from Ryung already, as he had already packed his things before Boxer even spoke with him. When Boxer tried to talk to MMA, MMA said that there wasn't any need to talk any further. When Boxer told MMA he was being demoted to the 2nd team and being sent home, MMA said that there was no need, and that he could just leave the team.
When Boxer told him he's still a player under contract, MMA said that wasn't a rea contract, but just a slave contract. The contracts we have for our players are for presenting to sponsors, and have 1 year durations with a prize winnings share, but in actuality we didn't take a cut, as the purpose of the contracts was never to make money. In the moment he called that a slave contract, we thought it to be absurd. The player who had signed contracts were 5 players, including MMA and Ganzi.
Boxer's Change of Heart
First, we were very hurt to hear the contracts be called slave contracts. Boxer knew how hard it was for players over ten years ago, and he tried to create the best environment possible for his players. He received a lot of criticism when he left his origins for StarCraft2, but it was his dream to continue as a player and grow new players for the future of esports. Thus, he was crushed when he heard that from MMA, a player he had taken close care of. At the time, Boxer had been preparing to return as a player before the release of Heart of the Swarm, but he changed his mind towards quitting the game.
Boxer was quickly losing his passion as player and manager, and it was tough on me as I watched it happen. He was teaching the players his 10 + years of experience in and outside the game, but the players weren't readily accepting it. So I suggested something that would help him, help T1, and perhaps motivate the remaining players on SlayerS. After thinking about it for a few days, Boxer decided that would be the best course of action.
Alicia and Ryung
Ryung was in MMA's shadow, and at the same time he was close with him. If Boxer was the one taking care of MMA, then I was the one who took care of Ryung. When the trouble occurred, there was a need to keep Ryung away from MMA lest he become influenced, and with him having wrist problems, I decided to send him home, where he happened to start playing well. Ryung never disappointed us, and he did his best in the GSTL despite the poor team atmosphere. Even so, the way Ryung followed MMA for no reason was disappointing. When I asked him why he took after MMA, he said that he had lost his trust after a certain point. When I asked him what I had done wrong, he couldn't answer.
As has been mentioned in previous interviews, Alicia wasn't with SlayerS from the start, but a player who joined on as a practice partner. Whatever we told him to do, he was a diligent and model player. However, he started to change once he started going to foreign tournaments. It's not bad for a person to seek fame and fortune, but our team started off in good conditions with everything in place. In our old team house we had a team van and car, and took care of the players. After we moved the team house, Cella took on a bigger role. From the beginning, there wasn't any 'hungry' spirit on the team. If we had started out poor, then players would have appreciated an improved situation, but since we started off well, players became discontent thinking things were growing worse.
Alicia's discontent was that when he came home from foreign tournaments, that no one would come greet him at the airport. That the coach wouldn't take him directly to the studio to play games. When I heard those complaints, I could only sigh, and I sent him home. I don't think I was wrong, those reasons made me think he didn't even have the basics down.
Normally, if nothing happened before October 6th, his contract would have been automatically extended. Alicia didn't contact us otherwise, and effectively his contract would have been extended. However, Alicia will be released from the team, as something unrevealable has happened lately.
It's a legal problem that could be fatal for his career, and something that cannot be forgiven. However, considering the people involved, I will not say. If there are any further problems in the future, we will see then.
The reason Clide was sent to KT
I felt uneasy when Clide started to hang out with MMA. So he wouldn't get swept away like MMA, I decided to make a path for Clide. He was in a situation where he wasn't getting results, and he had to go to the army, and I felt bad looking on. I convinced him there was another way for him achieve his reams, and conveniently, KT was looking to acquire a coach from us. At first I thought of Cella, but they wanted a Terran coach, thus I convinced Clide and sent him.
External rumors regarding SlayerS disbanding
Talking to Coach Ryu Won of Woongjin [Note: Former Slayers coach], he said he had heard rumors of SlayerS disbanding. He key was that he had heard it from a eSF source. I couldn't tell why eSF teams would go around talking about such things, as there was nothing confirmed at the time.
I think perhaps such talk came because SlayerS was left out of the eSF-KeSPA no-player-trade agreement, but in reality SlayerS was not left out of the agreement. When eSF made the announcement, they did not inform us of anyhting. We did not know of the agreement at all, and only learned of it when it was announced. From the eSF or KeSPA perspective, what makes SlayerS different from a foreign team? There aren't even any rules regarding Korean players no foreign teams.
If any team wants our players, then I will send them without hesitation. That's the last thing I can do for our remaining players. If I get an offer, I plan to let SlayerS players go. Just as in the past, I will not request a transfer fee. The purpose of the team was never to collect that kind of money. If we can't get a big corporate sponsor as was the our original hope, then I think this is the right way for the players' future.
However, I did tell MMA in the past that if he had a chance to join a KeSPA team and receive a salary, I would let him go. But at the time, he he assured me that he would rather than die than go to a KeSPA team, as he had already spent time on a KeSPA team and wasn't confident that he could handle that life again. He said that he would never compete in the KeSPA Proleague. We'll see if that turns out to be true.
Obviously, there's no plan to hold on to players who didn't sign contracts, and I will let any contracted players go. The contracted players would go to teams they want anyone once their contracts are up. Ganzi had signed a contract, but we allowed him to leave because he desired it. All I want from my players is for them not do anything that would betray my faith in them, and finish [their time on SlayerS] like pros.
The contracts end in November. It's possible that someone could take issue with something in the contract, or say that I did not fulfill a condition to try to get out of it. However, there's nothing the team didn't keep, and the team didn't even take 10 won from the players.
In fact, the funds allotted to boxer were spread to all the players in the team, and invested in the team. From what I hear, Alicia has already decided on a foreign team to join, but he won't say anything himself so I can't confirm. I hope he doesn't act the same way on other teams.
Normally, sponsorships are needed to run a team smoothly. However, even without a sponsorship, it's possible to invest in a team and run it like I have. There were opportunities to be had under great conditions, but they've all gone away because of a few selfish players.
This is something I've heard lately, but there's a rumor that I've been running the team by collecting money from the players. Externally, everyone knows we had been running with Boxer's personal sponsorship, but I think that maybe the rumor seemed credible since it was started by someone from the inside. I speculate that it's a harmful rumor started about me by someone looking to leave the team.
In reality, there were some eSF teams that ran like an amateur team house, collecting monthly fees from their players. Later, the eSF made rules so that teams could not collect money from players, but I knew of a team that still collected money from its players under a different bank account. Now they are sponsored, so it isn't that way anymore.
Still, you need sponsorships to run a team. It's already like bashing your head against a wall. Already, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent operating the team. It's not something that was started thinking to make a profit, but it's sad since I hoped things would work out for everyone.
The reason the team kept running was because of the remaining players. It's true that results weren't good lately, but because there were fans cheering SlayerS on, it wasn't a decision that could be made easily. It was possible that there wouldn't be enough players to fill a GSTL roster, and it was unsure how the the situation would change. However, it was time to make a decision.
Thinking about it, it doesn't make sense. But when we started, the goal was to make an amazing team with Boxer at the head. Now, Boxer is gone, and I have to be a mother to the players who trust and follow me. I hope I don't do anything that betrays their faith in me.
Misunderstandings about SlayerS players who moved to other teams.
Ganzi, TaeJa, Golden, and Sleep are cases where players left the team with no problems. In TaeJa's case, he requested that he be allowed to leave, and it was accepted. He wanted to play on a different team, not necessarily a foreign team, but in the process TeamLiquid sent a request. Whenever I see him doing well on his new team, I'm proud. He's not the style of player that practices a lot or puts in a lot of effort. However, seeing him play so well despite that makes me think that while MMA is the type of player that gets it done through effort, TaeJa is really a genius kind of player. If he could train under a system, then I think he could become the best player.
In conclusion
The reason this was all explained in detail is that the facts must be made clear if the remaining players are to stay free from speculation and misunderstanding. All of these things, I have heard from the parties themselves. When the read this article today, I don't know how they will react. I'll see whether they'll reveal some truths that I didn't know, that I hadn't been told, or whether they'll say some completely different nonsense.
In conclusion, regardless of who's right and wrong, the ostracizing of a team shouldn’t happen again. Recently, an eSF player on a smurf account messaged Sleep and called him 'SlayerS Trash.' The eSF needs to think about what kind of affect they're having on young players, when they're doing hypocritical enough to hold educational seminars for pro-gamers, while instructing them to pick on a specific team at the same time.
I could have buried all of this quietly. I thought about it for a long time. The eSF says I have no sense of being in it together. Did you do those things because you believe we're in it together? I do believe that one organization taking power and forging the way is needed. However, those running the eSF don't even have the right basic mindset, and are only interesting in exercising their power.
If eSports is to advance, we don't need restrictive agreements, we need a space where players can act more freely. That's just on the outside. In reality, everyone's busy taking care of themselves, so unless the management becomes something I can trust, I have no interest in joining the eSF.
I'm saying these things because I want people to stop saying ridiculous things, like Boxer joining SK is related to SlayerS not being part of the eSF. What I stated is the reason SlayerS did not join the eSF.
The reason I'm saying all these things isn't because we're sore. Once the team is gone, it's going to be gone from people's memories anyway. However, the players still have to go on. I wanted to clear up all the rumors that would follow them around like a tag. That's also the reason I stayed quiet for so long when our fans wanted to know what was going on.
It could become a messy fight, but I haven't lied about a single thing.
If there's anything someone hasn't told me, then I want them to reveal it.
Full translation by another person:
+ Show Spoiler +
Starcraft 2 Pro-gaming team Slayers have announced their disbandment.
Slayers is a starcraft 2 pro-gaming team founded on October 30, 2010, by SKT T1's coach Lim Yo-Hwan, and have won twice in the GSTL in 2011.
Kim Ga-Yeon(Jessica), owner of Slayers, have revealed the very long background history and current state of mind as well as their decision to disband the team following immediately after their losers' match against MVP in the GSTL on November 3rd.
The following is what was revealed by Jessica in its entirety:
The reason why slayers is disbanding and I am revealing everything is because of the possibility that assumptions claiming that the disbanding had to do with Boxer's moving to SKT T1, because not giving a reason for disbanding would be giving disappointment to all the fans that have supported us all these times, and because I thought that it was only right that we explain to the remaining fans the truth behind why the team had to disband. And so I publicly announce this.
I am planning to end Slayers' run of the past 2 years with the GSTL match on November 3rd.
I sincerely thank all the fans that have supported us all these times and am personally very disappointed and hurt that the things that we wanted to do together for a long time could not happen. But I still plan to help the remaining players find and pave their new paths and end things in a friendly manner with the remaining players. As an owner, sometimes as a coach, sometimes strongly, sometimes fearlessly...I am disappointed that the memories of crying and laughing of the past two years cannot be set aside as just good memories.
I truly thank the fans in and outside of Korea that have trusted and supported us.
Before, I didn't plan to tell the inside stories of the team to the people. The situations were things that would cause a bunch misunderstandings and assumptions if explained sloppily.
But now I have decided that it is time to talk about these things. Also, I want to reveal everything about Slayers to be rid of things that must be rid of. So many things have popped up that I needed time to organize my thoughts. The scars are just too big to cover by just being the 'bigger person'.
Current state of Slayers
MMA and Alicia have been demoted to the B team, and due to a problem that have come up, Alicia will be kicked out (He has not been informed yet). Ryung is currently playing at his house, Yugioh had always been playing at his house while coming to the gaming house every now and then to join the team. Crank did not leave, he was kicked out. Puzzle, Coca, and Min were given time to think about their future and they have picked to play League of Legends and are currently practicing.
At first I thought of not entering GSTL. Basically half of our main roster was gone so I had a lot to think about. And some players that still had a contract remaining with us refused to enter GSTL, making it even more difficult. But talking to the remaining players revealed that they wanted to enter. Even if we weren't to win, they said that gaining experience was important, and that is why we entered. As of right now, winning and losing is not important. I would like to put meaning in the coming together of the remaining people.
Besides the three that were thinking about their future(mentioned above; puzzle, coca, min) we entered the GSTL with 4 players from the B team and the remaining 4 of our A team. Alicia, who has been avoiding playing since the last GSTL, was removed completely from our roster.
Why Boxer joined SK Telecom
To talk about this, we must go back to the very point in time that Slayers was founded. So I must speak of some stories of the past.
From the very start, the Starcraft 2 Association and Slayers got off on the wrong foot. Slayers started richer than the other teams Intel as our sponsor. We also had Boxer. Given the situation, the Association wanted Slayers to join them. But at the time we did not know the nature or personality of the Association so we decided to sit back and watch first.
And that is when the Ryung incident happened.
*Translator mistranslated Ganzi as RyungRyung Incident
At the time, Ryung was in IM. Ryung voiced his opinion to coach Sung Sang-Hoon, that he wanted to join Boxer's team. Neither Boxer and I had heard anything about this.
And this caused IM to requested a GSL ban from the Association and had gotten it, but it was not yet decided if it was going to be a 6-month ban or an year long ban. Head coach Kang Dong-Hoon had told the ESF that Ryung was saying negative things about IM to outsiders and that Slayers had secretly attempted to steal Ryung, and had restricted Ryung. Because of this restriction, Ryung was about to give up playing.
From our perspective, it was not a situation where we were trying to secretly steal a player so we needed to figure out the truth of the problem in order to fix the misunderstanding.
So we took a look at conversations that Ryung had with other people that Ryung managed to get a hold of, and after checking the contents it was clear that the player had done nothing wrong. So we met with the Association and the coaches to figure out the truth and provided them with the proof, and had a conversation with Ryung and MVP present in the room. Head Coach Kang Dong-Hoon them became silent in front of the proof and only then simply said, "I must've misunderstood" and asked Ryung why he didn't say so.
We expected some sort of an apology for causing harm to us, a team completely unrelated with their problems, but they did not say a single word of apology for hurting our image publicly. The so called Association did not listen to both sides of the story and had taken care of things after listening to just one side's story.
After this incident, we thought of Association as an organization that did not think in the players' side and gave up on joining. There was no reason to join. Later on, the problem with Coach Lee Woon-Jae of TSL had risen and this very problem of the Association was brought to attention. But then another incident occurred.
NASL Deposit Incident
The NASL incident. The NASL season 1 was on the way and players including Boxer were preparing to play in it. Then Head Coach Won Jong-Wook(Head of Association) contacted us saying that NASL had told them they would not be paying for the plane tickets for the players, and said things like, "We can't be going to a foreign tournament being treated like this", "I wish for us to boycott". But we had already finished preparations (our sponsors have provided us with tickets and hotels) and had to enter.
NASL season 2 started, and we were once again asked to boycott, and Slayers wanted to take part in it. If we could get an improved result regarding the deposit system that we felt was unfair, we said we would take part in it. Head Coach Won promised that the Association and GomTV would get to work together and get what we can. But nothing was gained. We asked him to show something to show that he had talked with NASL, if he had sent them any e-mails or something, but Coach Won said there was no such thing.
Truthfully, I recognize that NASL's deposit system was something they needed. The group stages are streamed over a very long period of time. But as time passes, the players that have been confirmed not to move on have started to not show up and give up. And seeing that, I recognized that a system where a fine was made to the deposit was needed. NASL season 3 started and I was in a dilemma again. We boycotted season 2 but gained nothing, so we let our players enter and paid the deposits.
8 players made it through the preliminaries and Head Coach Choi Yoon-Sang contacted us. He basically said that he was disappointed in us and pointed out that FXO participated the preliminaries at first then pulled out quickly. So he told us to make the 8 players that have made it through, give it up. I explained to him that Head Coach Won promised results but in the end we were not given any results so I had no reason to participate in the boycott anymore and to please relay the message to the other coaches that may be misunderstanding it like he was. But for some strange reason, this message did not get shared.
Instead, Head Coach Won could've clearly delivered our stance on the matter to the other teams but did not, and this still made the other teams misunderstand. When I asked him why he did not relay our message, he told me he couldn't recall what we talked about during the boycott of NASL season 2. I could only think that the people that run the Association had no sense of responsibility.
I heard that they decided to outcast Slayers and told everyone to not help the Slayers players with practice. Not only were they not allowed to help us practice, but they were also not allowed to chat with our players.
Some players were very close to our players and just had to help, these players used their other accounts to help practice. So I met with Head Coach Won to confront him about it and he proudly responded, "It may be a cheap move, but we plan to restrict Slayers like this".
There was relationships between players to consider, and in this situation where we have done nothing wrong, I retaliated saying this was not fair. Head Coach Won said that this problem was all because we were outcasting ourselves by not helping them and being on our own without joining their Association.
I complained a few times, but there was no answer and with the continuing problem of not being able to find practice partners, the players had a hard time. I could not bare to see this, so I contacted Head Coach Won while he was in the States and requested, "I don't want my players being harmed because of me. I'll disband the team so take all our players".
And I told him that "we officially will press charges about the sponsor money we have received from our sponsors and the financial losses caused by the disbanding". Then Head Coach Won said that they would hold a conference that and tell me the result. Only this time was he quick to give me a response by e-mail saying that they would lift the restriction on us. (I showed the e-mail to a journalist and confirmed it) Who is using what power to outcast and restrict who?
But afterwards, according to the words of our players, they say they have lifted the restriction, but in reality the teams were told to continue not helping with practices. This is backed by the words of a former oGs player, currently in a foreign team.
Yes, this outcasting has caused a great divide between our relationship. Since then, the other teams and Slayers have become like oil and water. Before the Big announcement regarding OGN's move into starcraft, we were contacted last minute in and requested us to join them in order to form a Federation (ESF).
They restricted us all they want, and now that they needed Boxer, the requested that we join them there. I can't even begin to describe my disappointment when seeing them talk about sense of cooperation. Was it because they thought of us as partners that they restricted us? The organization has no sense of guilt for their actions. So of course, we refused.
They never even requested to make up. Every time we were denied practice and outcasted, I contacted Head Coach Won to check and he would tell me there was no restriction. But the players continue to tell us that they can't help us practice because their coaches still ordered them not to help. I don't know what the truth is. It's also ridiculous that players would accept such an order so easily.
When they need help, they ask our players for practice but when our players ask, they refuse saying their teams don't allow them to. How selfish is this? In fact, you could see the other teams' players thanking our players in interviews for helping them practice.
If they remember the fact that we currently have a player that was a member of the federation, they will not be able to deny this. We will tell him in a 3-way meeting what players in their teams have told us this.
MMA incident
At one point in time, we had Manager J (she literally refers to the person as Manager J, with the letter J) who dealt with foreign affairs for us. At first J was interested only in Boxer, and was not close to MMA from the start. But once he got close to him, he followed MMA to all his matches with great effort. J said he liked Slayers and that he could take care of the twitter and facebook in order to communicate with fans outside of Korea, so we let him do that and gave him the full-scale job of being our manager that dealt with all our foreign affairs. Last January, before the contracts with two of our sponsors ended, we actually started negotiating for extensions.
J took charge in the matter but for some reason I was told that the requests of the sponsors did not meet with our way of things. I wondered on my own, "Why would the sponsor do this to our team when we have been producing good results?" when I received the terms. Eventually I had to give up on extending the contract with the sponsor.
The problem started then. I decided that the team could be operated even if we did not received sponsoring on the side and continue operating. I was going to then try and find a sponsor on the side in the future. But the players kept being seen unsettled and I noticed something suspicious about J and started to look into it.
The result was shocking. J had been reporting different things to me and the sponsors. That is to say, he was telling me things were going well or how things were going, but what I found out was that he had not contacted the sponsors at all or had offered ridiculous terms to make them back out from the negotiations.
What was worse is that he had told the players that I had intercepted the sponsor money that I had taken from the sponsors with the players' names. Our team clearly received sponsor money and gears from Boxer, who the sponsors supported. The team was operated by Boxer's own money that he got from the sponsors; the players knew this and I just could not understand how they could believe that manager.
I was especially disappointed to find that MMA believed the manager saying that I intercepted sponsor money that was directed at individual players. I have taken care of them with so much care and love and yet they chose to believe a manager who had worked only 2 months. My heart was broken and I can't even remember how much I cried from the disappointment. J had apparently told MMA and some of the players to leave the team and make a team. He told them he would get them sponsors. The important part is that MMA did not look into any of this to see if anything was true, and that he tried to go on with J's plan with just J's words to rely on. He only told me the truth after I had dug up the truth.
It was also very shocking that none of the players tried to tell me this. I really wanted to legally punish the manager at that time, but I restrained myself for the players. I was lucky that I got scent of this incident, if I didn't the players would have all just told me they were leaving out of nowhere. After that, MMA started making statements of leaving the team and my unquestioned trust for MMA began to shatter.
According to MMA, MMA and the other players that have gone to foreign tournaments were still outcasted by the other teams. They said nobody would return their hellos and would talk bad of Slayers and me. And they were told that foreign teams will give them over a certain amount of salary and were recommended to move. MMA, Alicia, Crank, and Ryung had said that it was really hard to play as a Slayers player every time they went to foreign tournaments.
That was the first of the apparent reasons why MMA was wanting to leave the team.
The reason for MMA's punishment was regarding another matter. I have made him understand the outcasting and the reasons behind it (related to NASL incident). After that, MMA started hanging out a lot with Crank. I don't know what they talked about but Crank started saying that he was getting stressed because of the mood of the team. He was telling me that the players should be focusing on practicing and preparing for GSTL, but they were not listening nor playing games. At the time Boxer's shoulder was hurting so he was resting, but I felt the need to have him there and asked him to join them and watch over the players.
Still, Crank told me that even when he had spoken to the coach and even Boxer though was there, the team's mood did not change. He asked me what I did. After hearing his words at the time, I felt very sorry. The players were complaining, but nothing was changing so I felt really stifled.
One day, Crank told me he wanted to rest at home because hie neck was hurting. He said it was because of the early stages of a neck disc problem. It was before the GSTL round of 4s. He told me that he already had something prepared and that it was okay for him to go home and practice there. I asked Cella and he told me that crank had a build prepared for a map and could just practice at home, so I let him go home. But I was told that Crank told Cella that he wasn't going to game at home and to keep it a secret.
That weekend, before the match, he requested that he be taken off the entry. He seemed really sick so I talked to him through a messenger but he didn't reply. So I left a message saying, "I'll just leave you on the entry so I hope to see you at the studio after you've gotten your body and mind together". After that, a text came to Cella from Crank. He asked him why I'm doing this to him. Was 'hope to see you after you've gotten your body and mind together' a bad thing to say?(**In English it can be seen as something inconsiderate I guess..but personally I feel like what she said in Korean was nothing out of line)
Only then, did Cella tell me that Crank had said he was going to stop playing. So I asked Crank why he didn't say it himself, and he told me that he really just wanted to rest and he asked me to let him go, saying he has no intention of moving to a foreign team or another team. I did not think to stop Crank from leaving, and he had said himself that he was going to stop playing and just rest, so I agreed to have him leave Slayers.
But afterwards I heard from another person that he was streaming and saying he was looking for a foreign team to join. I asked him why he lied and pointed out his unprofessionalism. He then asked me back if I knew why MMA wanted to leave. According to Crank, MMA wanted to leave because of Crank. Crank had told MMA that he wanted to leave because of the team's mood, and MMA had told him 'Let's leave together'. I checked with MMA, and he said that was not true.
Recently Crank called me and asked me if I was trying to ruin his pro-gaming life and protested that I was connecting the problems of Alicia, Ryung, and MMA to him. He was yelling at me the whole time and I was dumbfounded. I retorted that he may be mad but that's no way to speak to the owner of the team that has been helping him grow and taking care of him, and he replied saying, 'And who are you to tell me this?', I could find words to describe my aghast.
Boxer was hearing from the side and could not take it and took the phone from me. And he then yelled at Boxer, yelling "And what did you do?". Crank claims he is only going to play starcraft 2 until the end of the year, and wanted to play game in a comfortable environment. I'll wait and see if that is true. In case he denies it, I also have a recording of a phone conversation with him saying he will.
Being cursed and yelled at by players after having poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars and devotion into managing and running the team, Boxer received heavy shock. The team made it to the finals of GSTL but the mood of the team was very bad. I needed to do something about MMA and Crank, disrupting the mood of the team. So I sent MMA home and kicked Crank out. They done things that should not have been done as a teammate and disrupted the mood of the team, so I had to punish them.
So I tried to inform MMA of this, but he did not come back to the team after leaving during the weekend. He didn't help with GSTL practice and he became a totally different person. Boxer and I spoke instead to Ryung. Ryung actually would exchange jokes with me before but suddenly he seemed to find me difficult and could not even look into my eyes. So I wanted to talk to him about what the problem was. MMA had already said that he wanted to leave the team twice, and each time I'd tell Ryung the reason and make him understand to carry him on.
But the same problem had come up again and this time it seemed to be spreading to players like Ryung and others. Even thought we had made it to the round of 4, we judged that this was very serious. In order to keep Ryung from being carried away by the mood of the team, Boxer, with a very self-hurting feeling, told Ryung that MMA is at the moment a cancerous part of the team and that Ryung should think decide for himself. Ryung was clearly confused and asked to go home and practice there while resting, and he did.
MMA returned to the team house the next day. He must've heard everything from Ryung because before he even talked to Boxer, he had already packed up his things. Boxer called MMA to start talking but MMA told him that there was no need to talk anymore. Boxer then informed MMA that he was being demoted to the B team and told him to go home, to which MMA replied, "There's no need, it'll all work out if I leave the team".
Boxer told him that MMA still had a contract with the team and MMA told Boxer that the contract was not a contract, but a 'slave contract'. The contract we had with players was an year long contract that was meant for submission to the sponsors, and it had fixed a winnings share ratio(taken mostly by the player). But in reality we did not get the money from the sponsors, because we didn't sign the contracts to receive money. And when he called this a 'slave contract' we were really shocked.
The players that had the contracts were 5 players, including MMA and Ryung.
Boxer's Change of Heart
First off, heart broken by the words 'slave contract'. Using his memories of a decade ago when players lived very hard, he tried to make an environment that was for the players. He took a lot of criticisms to leave his home(sc1) to move over to starcraft2. He continued as a player and it was his dream to raise the younger generations to put the future of e-sports in their hands, so the words and actions of MMA, who he had cherished and raised with so much care had made him taste a huge discouragement.
He was preparing to return before the release of Heart of the Swarm but at the time of the heartbreak he tried to stop playing.
Boxer's passion as a manager and player was deteriorating rapidly and it was very hard for me as well, to watch from his side. He was ordinarily trying to teach the players about his experience as a pro-gamer for over 10 years, but the players did not accept it easily. So I suggsted that he make a decision that helps T1 and motivate the remaining players at the same time. After a few days of thinking, Boxer agreed that would be good.
Alicia and Ryung
Ryung was always in MMA's shadows, and he followed MMA and was close to him. If Boxer took care of MMA, I took care of Ryung. After the incident, I didn't want Ryung being affected by MMA so I separated him. His wrist was also in a bad state so I sent him home. After sending him home, he showed good results. Ryung never disappointed us. Even in that mood, he tried his best in GSTL. But I am still disappointed that Ryung is following MMA's actions without reason. I asked him why he was acting that way and he told me he had lost faith along the way. I asked him what I did wrong, and he could not answer me.
Alicia, as previously announced, is not a founding member, but a player we have included in our ranks as a trainee. He had a very good work ethic and set an example to everyone in anything asked of him. But after going to foreign tournaments, he started showing different sides. It is not a bad thing for a person to chase money and glory, but our team started in a grand fashion with everything we needed from the start. We took care of our kids with vans and cars. Once we started working we moved to a different location and gave more weight to Coach Cella's role. From the start we did not have the 'hungry mind-set'. If we started poor, we would've been thankful for things we got as things got better, but in our case we started with good and this made them think things were getting bad and they complained.
Alicia's complaint was that nobody came to see him to pick him up at the airport after he came back from a foreign tournament. He was annoyed that the coach didn't come to see him to the studio. When I heard that, all I could do was sigh. So I sent him home. It wasn't a complaint saying I did something wrong, but it was the matter of his attitude.
His contract automatically extends if there are no words specifying otherwise by October 6th. He did not say anything, and it can be seen as an extension. But I am kicking him out of the team. An unmentionable reason came up recently.
This is a problem that can be problematic legally and is not something forgiveable, but I am not revealing what it is because I have to consider the other people involved in this. If a dispute in the future, we'll have to see then.
Why Clide was sent to KT
I felt nervous about Clide as soon as he started hanging out with MMA. I started thinking that I should make him his own path so that he isn't swept away by MMA and make the same mistake. He still had to go to the army and was not getting results, so felt pity. I convinced him that there are ways to spread his dream and fortunately, KT offered a coach job. At first we were thinking of Cella, but they wanted a Terran coach so we convinced Clide and sent him.
Outside rumors about Slayers' disbanding
I was talking to Coach Ryu of Woongjin(former Slayers coach) and he told me that he had heard that Slayers was disbanding. The point was that he had heard about the disbanding from a team in the ESF. I have no idea why ESF would go around saying that. At the time, there was no disbanding decided.
It may have been because they think Slayers is not included in the ESF KeSPA players trade agreement, but in reality Slayers is included. When ESF made the announcement they did not inform us anything and we didn't know anything about the players trade agreement, and only found out about it when it was announced. I don't know why our team was included in there. How is Slayers and different from the foreign teams from ESF of KeSPA's stand point? In fact, there was no clause set about Korean players that are currently in foreign teams.
If at any time there is a team that needs our player, I will send the player. That is the only thing I can do for them. From now on, if a request to recruit a player comes, I'm going to send him. As it was before, there won't be a transfer fee. I didn't make the team to earn transfer fees.
If we can't go on as the team we founded together like we wanted, I think that is the correct thing to do for the future of the players. But MMA was told before that if a chance to go to a good KeSPA team for a good salary came up, that we will let him go. But he himself said that he won't go to an KeSPA team even if it kills him because he had already seen how it was in those teams and said he wasn't sure he could handle that kind of a living. He also stated clearly that he won't enter any KeSPA pro leagues. I plan to see if he was telling the truth.
I of course didn't hold players that were contracted, and I even if they were, I let them go if they really wanted to. The contracted players can choose to stay or go when their contract ends. Ganzi signed a contract but we let him go because he wanted to. What I want is the players to not break trusts and end it well by acting like professionals.
The contracted players' contract end in November. I assure you thatn if there was a problematic clause in the contract or if the team did not fulfill a duty, they will try to leave the team, but there isn't a single clause that the team did not fulfill and we did not receive a penny from the players.
Instead we gave the players the money that was allocated to Boxer and made investments to the team that way. I heard Alicia has already have chosen a foreign team to join, but he hasn't said anything so I can't know for sure. But I just hope he doesn't act that way in the team.
Usually sponsors are needed to operate a team smoothly. Even if there are no sponsors, I can personally invest and operate like I am now. There have been very good offers and opportunities, but the they are all blown away now by a selfish player.
I heard recently that there was a rumor that I accept money from players and use that to run the team. From the outside, it is known that we are running on Boxer's individual sponsorship money, and I think that it is because an insider that spread the rumor that it is being believed. I'm guessing that the person spread that rumor to harm the team and myself in order to leave the team.
In reality, some of the Association teams were accepting money from players monthly and ran the team like an amateur dorm. Later on the Association made a rule saying they could not collect money from players, but some teams were still receiving money with a bank account. Now they have sponsors so they probably are not donig that anymore.
But still to run a team you need sponsors. I'm already deep in it. I've already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to run the team. The team didn't exactly start with wanting an income in mind, but everyone pictured something working out so it's a disappointing.
The reason I continued to operated despite all this is because there were players taht remained. Our recent results have been bad. There are also fans that are still watching and supporting us so it isn't something we can do without caution.
It couldn've our players not even filling the entry to enter in the GSTL, even I couldn't predict how things were going to change. Situations were changing drastically. But I am now going to make the decision.
Even I think it doesn't make sense. But when we first made Slayers, our goal was to make an incredible team with Boxer at the head. Now Boxer is gone, and in this situation I have to play a parent to the players that believe and follow me. I just hope the players don't do things that breaks trusts.
Rumors about players that moved from Slayers to other teams
Ganzi, Taeja, Golden, and Sleep were cases that had no problems leaving the team. Taeja wanted to go and he requested, so we let him go. He didn't necessarily want a foreign team but wanted to move to a different team to play, and Team Liquid sent a request. I'm so proud of him every time I see him perform well after having moved. He's not the type to practice a lot or put effort. Looking at him produces that kind of results despite that; if MMA was the type that worked hard, Taeja is the genius type. If trained well within a system, I think he'll become the best player.
Lastly
The reason why I am revelaing things in detail is because I thought people wouldn't assume and misunderstand the remaining players if I revealed the facts. I have heard all of this straight from the mouths of each of the people invovled. I don't know how they each will react to this article. I'll have to see if they will speak truths that I did not know about, or if they'll say something completely ridiculous.
The conclusion is that whether who is wrong or right, things like the act of outcasting should not happen again. Recently a player from ESF logged into his second account and called Sleep, who is staying at our team house at the moment, a 'Slegi'(it's a mix of the words Slayers and Trash in Korean). They're outcasting so saying bad things isn't a surprise, but ESF must realize how their hypocritical actions of educating players of cultivation while ordering them to outcast people are affecting the young players.
I could have buried all of this quietly. I thought about it for a really long time. ESF says I have no sense of cooperation. Did they really do all that because they thought of us as partners? I think that a group forming and having power is essential to allow the group to do things in the future. But people running ESF didn't even have the basic mindset ready and only focused on displaying the power of the group.
If they really want e-Sports to develop, they should think more about creating situations and space where players can run around freely than restrictions. They all disguise themselves on the outside with words that seem progressive but in reality they are more focused on keeping their food. Because of this unless the people running the ESF is not changed to people that can be trusted, I will not be joining the ESF.
I am clearly revealing this so that people won't spread the rumor of Boxer going to SKT as a coach because Slayers did not join ESF. This is the unmoving reason why Slayers did not join ESF, that the fans have been wondering.
I am not saying all this in detail to complain that it is unfair. If a team goes away, it'll fade from memory, but the players have to stay in this field. I wanted to get rid of all the rumors that would have followed the players where ever they went. This is also the reason why I have kept quiet for so long when the fans wanted to know.
This could become a dirty fight, but I have not told a single lie.
I really want them to tell me themselves if there are truths they have not told me.
Slayers is a starcraft 2 pro-gaming team founded on October 30, 2010, by SKT T1's coach Lim Yo-Hwan, and have won twice in the GSTL in 2011.
Kim Ga-Yeon(Jessica), owner of Slayers, have revealed the very long background history and current state of mind as well as their decision to disband the team following immediately after their losers' match against MVP in the GSTL on November 3rd.
The following is what was revealed by Jessica in its entirety:
The reason why slayers is disbanding and I am revealing everything is because of the possibility that assumptions claiming that the disbanding had to do with Boxer's moving to SKT T1, because not giving a reason for disbanding would be giving disappointment to all the fans that have supported us all these times, and because I thought that it was only right that we explain to the remaining fans the truth behind why the team had to disband. And so I publicly announce this.
I am planning to end Slayers' run of the past 2 years with the GSTL match on November 3rd.
I sincerely thank all the fans that have supported us all these times and am personally very disappointed and hurt that the things that we wanted to do together for a long time could not happen. But I still plan to help the remaining players find and pave their new paths and end things in a friendly manner with the remaining players. As an owner, sometimes as a coach, sometimes strongly, sometimes fearlessly...I am disappointed that the memories of crying and laughing of the past two years cannot be set aside as just good memories.
I truly thank the fans in and outside of Korea that have trusted and supported us.
Before, I didn't plan to tell the inside stories of the team to the people. The situations were things that would cause a bunch misunderstandings and assumptions if explained sloppily.
But now I have decided that it is time to talk about these things. Also, I want to reveal everything about Slayers to be rid of things that must be rid of. So many things have popped up that I needed time to organize my thoughts. The scars are just too big to cover by just being the 'bigger person'.
Current state of Slayers
MMA and Alicia have been demoted to the B team, and due to a problem that have come up, Alicia will be kicked out (He has not been informed yet). Ryung is currently playing at his house, Yugioh had always been playing at his house while coming to the gaming house every now and then to join the team. Crank did not leave, he was kicked out. Puzzle, Coca, and Min were given time to think about their future and they have picked to play League of Legends and are currently practicing.
At first I thought of not entering GSTL. Basically half of our main roster was gone so I had a lot to think about. And some players that still had a contract remaining with us refused to enter GSTL, making it even more difficult. But talking to the remaining players revealed that they wanted to enter. Even if we weren't to win, they said that gaining experience was important, and that is why we entered. As of right now, winning and losing is not important. I would like to put meaning in the coming together of the remaining people.
Besides the three that were thinking about their future(mentioned above; puzzle, coca, min) we entered the GSTL with 4 players from the B team and the remaining 4 of our A team. Alicia, who has been avoiding playing since the last GSTL, was removed completely from our roster.
Why Boxer joined SK Telecom
To talk about this, we must go back to the very point in time that Slayers was founded. So I must speak of some stories of the past.
From the very start, the Starcraft 2 Association and Slayers got off on the wrong foot. Slayers started richer than the other teams Intel as our sponsor. We also had Boxer. Given the situation, the Association wanted Slayers to join them. But at the time we did not know the nature or personality of the Association so we decided to sit back and watch first.
And that is when the Ryung incident happened.
*Translator mistranslated Ganzi as Ryung
At the time, Ryung was in IM. Ryung voiced his opinion to coach Sung Sang-Hoon, that he wanted to join Boxer's team. Neither Boxer and I had heard anything about this.
And this caused IM to requested a GSL ban from the Association and had gotten it, but it was not yet decided if it was going to be a 6-month ban or an year long ban. Head coach Kang Dong-Hoon had told the ESF that Ryung was saying negative things about IM to outsiders and that Slayers had secretly attempted to steal Ryung, and had restricted Ryung. Because of this restriction, Ryung was about to give up playing.
From our perspective, it was not a situation where we were trying to secretly steal a player so we needed to figure out the truth of the problem in order to fix the misunderstanding.
So we took a look at conversations that Ryung had with other people that Ryung managed to get a hold of, and after checking the contents it was clear that the player had done nothing wrong. So we met with the Association and the coaches to figure out the truth and provided them with the proof, and had a conversation with Ryung and MVP present in the room. Head Coach Kang Dong-Hoon them became silent in front of the proof and only then simply said, "I must've misunderstood" and asked Ryung why he didn't say so.
We expected some sort of an apology for causing harm to us, a team completely unrelated with their problems, but they did not say a single word of apology for hurting our image publicly. The so called Association did not listen to both sides of the story and had taken care of things after listening to just one side's story.
After this incident, we thought of Association as an organization that did not think in the players' side and gave up on joining. There was no reason to join. Later on, the problem with Coach Lee Woon-Jae of TSL had risen and this very problem of the Association was brought to attention. But then another incident occurred.
NASL Deposit Incident
The NASL incident. The NASL season 1 was on the way and players including Boxer were preparing to play in it. Then Head Coach Won Jong-Wook(Head of Association) contacted us saying that NASL had told them they would not be paying for the plane tickets for the players, and said things like, "We can't be going to a foreign tournament being treated like this", "I wish for us to boycott". But we had already finished preparations (our sponsors have provided us with tickets and hotels) and had to enter.
NASL season 2 started, and we were once again asked to boycott, and Slayers wanted to take part in it. If we could get an improved result regarding the deposit system that we felt was unfair, we said we would take part in it. Head Coach Won promised that the Association and GomTV would get to work together and get what we can. But nothing was gained. We asked him to show something to show that he had talked with NASL, if he had sent them any e-mails or something, but Coach Won said there was no such thing.
Truthfully, I recognize that NASL's deposit system was something they needed. The group stages are streamed over a very long period of time. But as time passes, the players that have been confirmed not to move on have started to not show up and give up. And seeing that, I recognized that a system where a fine was made to the deposit was needed. NASL season 3 started and I was in a dilemma again. We boycotted season 2 but gained nothing, so we let our players enter and paid the deposits.
8 players made it through the preliminaries and Head Coach Choi Yoon-Sang contacted us. He basically said that he was disappointed in us and pointed out that FXO participated the preliminaries at first then pulled out quickly. So he told us to make the 8 players that have made it through, give it up. I explained to him that Head Coach Won promised results but in the end we were not given any results so I had no reason to participate in the boycott anymore and to please relay the message to the other coaches that may be misunderstanding it like he was. But for some strange reason, this message did not get shared.
Instead, Head Coach Won could've clearly delivered our stance on the matter to the other teams but did not, and this still made the other teams misunderstand. When I asked him why he did not relay our message, he told me he couldn't recall what we talked about during the boycott of NASL season 2. I could only think that the people that run the Association had no sense of responsibility.
I heard that they decided to outcast Slayers and told everyone to not help the Slayers players with practice. Not only were they not allowed to help us practice, but they were also not allowed to chat with our players.
Some players were very close to our players and just had to help, these players used their other accounts to help practice. So I met with Head Coach Won to confront him about it and he proudly responded, "It may be a cheap move, but we plan to restrict Slayers like this".
There was relationships between players to consider, and in this situation where we have done nothing wrong, I retaliated saying this was not fair. Head Coach Won said that this problem was all because we were outcasting ourselves by not helping them and being on our own without joining their Association.
I complained a few times, but there was no answer and with the continuing problem of not being able to find practice partners, the players had a hard time. I could not bare to see this, so I contacted Head Coach Won while he was in the States and requested, "I don't want my players being harmed because of me. I'll disband the team so take all our players".
And I told him that "we officially will press charges about the sponsor money we have received from our sponsors and the financial losses caused by the disbanding". Then Head Coach Won said that they would hold a conference that and tell me the result. Only this time was he quick to give me a response by e-mail saying that they would lift the restriction on us. (I showed the e-mail to a journalist and confirmed it) Who is using what power to outcast and restrict who?
But afterwards, according to the words of our players, they say they have lifted the restriction, but in reality the teams were told to continue not helping with practices. This is backed by the words of a former oGs player, currently in a foreign team.
Yes, this outcasting has caused a great divide between our relationship. Since then, the other teams and Slayers have become like oil and water. Before the Big announcement regarding OGN's move into starcraft, we were contacted last minute in and requested us to join them in order to form a Federation (ESF).
They restricted us all they want, and now that they needed Boxer, the requested that we join them there. I can't even begin to describe my disappointment when seeing them talk about sense of cooperation. Was it because they thought of us as partners that they restricted us? The organization has no sense of guilt for their actions. So of course, we refused.
They never even requested to make up. Every time we were denied practice and outcasted, I contacted Head Coach Won to check and he would tell me there was no restriction. But the players continue to tell us that they can't help us practice because their coaches still ordered them not to help. I don't know what the truth is. It's also ridiculous that players would accept such an order so easily.
When they need help, they ask our players for practice but when our players ask, they refuse saying their teams don't allow them to. How selfish is this? In fact, you could see the other teams' players thanking our players in interviews for helping them practice.
If they remember the fact that we currently have a player that was a member of the federation, they will not be able to deny this. We will tell him in a 3-way meeting what players in their teams have told us this.
MMA incident
At one point in time, we had Manager J (she literally refers to the person as Manager J, with the letter J) who dealt with foreign affairs for us. At first J was interested only in Boxer, and was not close to MMA from the start. But once he got close to him, he followed MMA to all his matches with great effort. J said he liked Slayers and that he could take care of the twitter and facebook in order to communicate with fans outside of Korea, so we let him do that and gave him the full-scale job of being our manager that dealt with all our foreign affairs. Last January, before the contracts with two of our sponsors ended, we actually started negotiating for extensions.
J took charge in the matter but for some reason I was told that the requests of the sponsors did not meet with our way of things. I wondered on my own, "Why would the sponsor do this to our team when we have been producing good results?" when I received the terms. Eventually I had to give up on extending the contract with the sponsor.
The problem started then. I decided that the team could be operated even if we did not received sponsoring on the side and continue operating. I was going to then try and find a sponsor on the side in the future. But the players kept being seen unsettled and I noticed something suspicious about J and started to look into it.
The result was shocking. J had been reporting different things to me and the sponsors. That is to say, he was telling me things were going well or how things were going, but what I found out was that he had not contacted the sponsors at all or had offered ridiculous terms to make them back out from the negotiations.
What was worse is that he had told the players that I had intercepted the sponsor money that I had taken from the sponsors with the players' names. Our team clearly received sponsor money and gears from Boxer, who the sponsors supported. The team was operated by Boxer's own money that he got from the sponsors; the players knew this and I just could not understand how they could believe that manager.
I was especially disappointed to find that MMA believed the manager saying that I intercepted sponsor money that was directed at individual players. I have taken care of them with so much care and love and yet they chose to believe a manager who had worked only 2 months. My heart was broken and I can't even remember how much I cried from the disappointment. J had apparently told MMA and some of the players to leave the team and make a team. He told them he would get them sponsors. The important part is that MMA did not look into any of this to see if anything was true, and that he tried to go on with J's plan with just J's words to rely on. He only told me the truth after I had dug up the truth.
It was also very shocking that none of the players tried to tell me this. I really wanted to legally punish the manager at that time, but I restrained myself for the players. I was lucky that I got scent of this incident, if I didn't the players would have all just told me they were leaving out of nowhere. After that, MMA started making statements of leaving the team and my unquestioned trust for MMA began to shatter.
According to MMA, MMA and the other players that have gone to foreign tournaments were still outcasted by the other teams. They said nobody would return their hellos and would talk bad of Slayers and me. And they were told that foreign teams will give them over a certain amount of salary and were recommended to move. MMA, Alicia, Crank, and Ryung had said that it was really hard to play as a Slayers player every time they went to foreign tournaments.
That was the first of the apparent reasons why MMA was wanting to leave the team.
The reason for MMA's punishment was regarding another matter. I have made him understand the outcasting and the reasons behind it (related to NASL incident). After that, MMA started hanging out a lot with Crank. I don't know what they talked about but Crank started saying that he was getting stressed because of the mood of the team. He was telling me that the players should be focusing on practicing and preparing for GSTL, but they were not listening nor playing games. At the time Boxer's shoulder was hurting so he was resting, but I felt the need to have him there and asked him to join them and watch over the players.
Still, Crank told me that even when he had spoken to the coach and even Boxer though was there, the team's mood did not change. He asked me what I did. After hearing his words at the time, I felt very sorry. The players were complaining, but nothing was changing so I felt really stifled.
One day, Crank told me he wanted to rest at home because hie neck was hurting. He said it was because of the early stages of a neck disc problem. It was before the GSTL round of 4s. He told me that he already had something prepared and that it was okay for him to go home and practice there. I asked Cella and he told me that crank had a build prepared for a map and could just practice at home, so I let him go home. But I was told that Crank told Cella that he wasn't going to game at home and to keep it a secret.
That weekend, before the match, he requested that he be taken off the entry. He seemed really sick so I talked to him through a messenger but he didn't reply. So I left a message saying, "I'll just leave you on the entry so I hope to see you at the studio after you've gotten your body and mind together". After that, a text came to Cella from Crank. He asked him why I'm doing this to him. Was 'hope to see you after you've gotten your body and mind together' a bad thing to say?(**In English it can be seen as something inconsiderate I guess..but personally I feel like what she said in Korean was nothing out of line)
Only then, did Cella tell me that Crank had said he was going to stop playing. So I asked Crank why he didn't say it himself, and he told me that he really just wanted to rest and he asked me to let him go, saying he has no intention of moving to a foreign team or another team. I did not think to stop Crank from leaving, and he had said himself that he was going to stop playing and just rest, so I agreed to have him leave Slayers.
But afterwards I heard from another person that he was streaming and saying he was looking for a foreign team to join. I asked him why he lied and pointed out his unprofessionalism. He then asked me back if I knew why MMA wanted to leave. According to Crank, MMA wanted to leave because of Crank. Crank had told MMA that he wanted to leave because of the team's mood, and MMA had told him 'Let's leave together'. I checked with MMA, and he said that was not true.
Recently Crank called me and asked me if I was trying to ruin his pro-gaming life and protested that I was connecting the problems of Alicia, Ryung, and MMA to him. He was yelling at me the whole time and I was dumbfounded. I retorted that he may be mad but that's no way to speak to the owner of the team that has been helping him grow and taking care of him, and he replied saying, 'And who are you to tell me this?', I could find words to describe my aghast.
Boxer was hearing from the side and could not take it and took the phone from me. And he then yelled at Boxer, yelling "And what did you do?". Crank claims he is only going to play starcraft 2 until the end of the year, and wanted to play game in a comfortable environment. I'll wait and see if that is true. In case he denies it, I also have a recording of a phone conversation with him saying he will.
Being cursed and yelled at by players after having poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars and devotion into managing and running the team, Boxer received heavy shock. The team made it to the finals of GSTL but the mood of the team was very bad. I needed to do something about MMA and Crank, disrupting the mood of the team. So I sent MMA home and kicked Crank out. They done things that should not have been done as a teammate and disrupted the mood of the team, so I had to punish them.
So I tried to inform MMA of this, but he did not come back to the team after leaving during the weekend. He didn't help with GSTL practice and he became a totally different person. Boxer and I spoke instead to Ryung. Ryung actually would exchange jokes with me before but suddenly he seemed to find me difficult and could not even look into my eyes. So I wanted to talk to him about what the problem was. MMA had already said that he wanted to leave the team twice, and each time I'd tell Ryung the reason and make him understand to carry him on.
But the same problem had come up again and this time it seemed to be spreading to players like Ryung and others. Even thought we had made it to the round of 4, we judged that this was very serious. In order to keep Ryung from being carried away by the mood of the team, Boxer, with a very self-hurting feeling, told Ryung that MMA is at the moment a cancerous part of the team and that Ryung should think decide for himself. Ryung was clearly confused and asked to go home and practice there while resting, and he did.
MMA returned to the team house the next day. He must've heard everything from Ryung because before he even talked to Boxer, he had already packed up his things. Boxer called MMA to start talking but MMA told him that there was no need to talk anymore. Boxer then informed MMA that he was being demoted to the B team and told him to go home, to which MMA replied, "There's no need, it'll all work out if I leave the team".
Boxer told him that MMA still had a contract with the team and MMA told Boxer that the contract was not a contract, but a 'slave contract'. The contract we had with players was an year long contract that was meant for submission to the sponsors, and it had fixed a winnings share ratio(taken mostly by the player). But in reality we did not get the money from the sponsors, because we didn't sign the contracts to receive money. And when he called this a 'slave contract' we were really shocked.
The players that had the contracts were 5 players, including MMA and Ryung.
Boxer's Change of Heart
First off, heart broken by the words 'slave contract'. Using his memories of a decade ago when players lived very hard, he tried to make an environment that was for the players. He took a lot of criticisms to leave his home(sc1) to move over to starcraft2. He continued as a player and it was his dream to raise the younger generations to put the future of e-sports in their hands, so the words and actions of MMA, who he had cherished and raised with so much care had made him taste a huge discouragement.
He was preparing to return before the release of Heart of the Swarm but at the time of the heartbreak he tried to stop playing.
Boxer's passion as a manager and player was deteriorating rapidly and it was very hard for me as well, to watch from his side. He was ordinarily trying to teach the players about his experience as a pro-gamer for over 10 years, but the players did not accept it easily. So I suggsted that he make a decision that helps T1 and motivate the remaining players at the same time. After a few days of thinking, Boxer agreed that would be good.
Alicia and Ryung
Ryung was always in MMA's shadows, and he followed MMA and was close to him. If Boxer took care of MMA, I took care of Ryung. After the incident, I didn't want Ryung being affected by MMA so I separated him. His wrist was also in a bad state so I sent him home. After sending him home, he showed good results. Ryung never disappointed us. Even in that mood, he tried his best in GSTL. But I am still disappointed that Ryung is following MMA's actions without reason. I asked him why he was acting that way and he told me he had lost faith along the way. I asked him what I did wrong, and he could not answer me.
Alicia, as previously announced, is not a founding member, but a player we have included in our ranks as a trainee. He had a very good work ethic and set an example to everyone in anything asked of him. But after going to foreign tournaments, he started showing different sides. It is not a bad thing for a person to chase money and glory, but our team started in a grand fashion with everything we needed from the start. We took care of our kids with vans and cars. Once we started working we moved to a different location and gave more weight to Coach Cella's role. From the start we did not have the 'hungry mind-set'. If we started poor, we would've been thankful for things we got as things got better, but in our case we started with good and this made them think things were getting bad and they complained.
Alicia's complaint was that nobody came to see him to pick him up at the airport after he came back from a foreign tournament. He was annoyed that the coach didn't come to see him to the studio. When I heard that, all I could do was sigh. So I sent him home. It wasn't a complaint saying I did something wrong, but it was the matter of his attitude.
His contract automatically extends if there are no words specifying otherwise by October 6th. He did not say anything, and it can be seen as an extension. But I am kicking him out of the team. An unmentionable reason came up recently.
This is a problem that can be problematic legally and is not something forgiveable, but I am not revealing what it is because I have to consider the other people involved in this. If a dispute in the future, we'll have to see then.
Why Clide was sent to KT
I felt nervous about Clide as soon as he started hanging out with MMA. I started thinking that I should make him his own path so that he isn't swept away by MMA and make the same mistake. He still had to go to the army and was not getting results, so felt pity. I convinced him that there are ways to spread his dream and fortunately, KT offered a coach job. At first we were thinking of Cella, but they wanted a Terran coach so we convinced Clide and sent him.
Outside rumors about Slayers' disbanding
I was talking to Coach Ryu of Woongjin(former Slayers coach) and he told me that he had heard that Slayers was disbanding. The point was that he had heard about the disbanding from a team in the ESF. I have no idea why ESF would go around saying that. At the time, there was no disbanding decided.
It may have been because they think Slayers is not included in the ESF KeSPA players trade agreement, but in reality Slayers is included. When ESF made the announcement they did not inform us anything and we didn't know anything about the players trade agreement, and only found out about it when it was announced. I don't know why our team was included in there. How is Slayers and different from the foreign teams from ESF of KeSPA's stand point? In fact, there was no clause set about Korean players that are currently in foreign teams.
If at any time there is a team that needs our player, I will send the player. That is the only thing I can do for them. From now on, if a request to recruit a player comes, I'm going to send him. As it was before, there won't be a transfer fee. I didn't make the team to earn transfer fees.
If we can't go on as the team we founded together like we wanted, I think that is the correct thing to do for the future of the players. But MMA was told before that if a chance to go to a good KeSPA team for a good salary came up, that we will let him go. But he himself said that he won't go to an KeSPA team even if it kills him because he had already seen how it was in those teams and said he wasn't sure he could handle that kind of a living. He also stated clearly that he won't enter any KeSPA pro leagues. I plan to see if he was telling the truth.
I of course didn't hold players that were contracted, and I even if they were, I let them go if they really wanted to. The contracted players can choose to stay or go when their contract ends. Ganzi signed a contract but we let him go because he wanted to. What I want is the players to not break trusts and end it well by acting like professionals.
The contracted players' contract end in November. I assure you thatn if there was a problematic clause in the contract or if the team did not fulfill a duty, they will try to leave the team, but there isn't a single clause that the team did not fulfill and we did not receive a penny from the players.
Instead we gave the players the money that was allocated to Boxer and made investments to the team that way. I heard Alicia has already have chosen a foreign team to join, but he hasn't said anything so I can't know for sure. But I just hope he doesn't act that way in the team.
Usually sponsors are needed to operate a team smoothly. Even if there are no sponsors, I can personally invest and operate like I am now. There have been very good offers and opportunities, but the they are all blown away now by a selfish player.
I heard recently that there was a rumor that I accept money from players and use that to run the team. From the outside, it is known that we are running on Boxer's individual sponsorship money, and I think that it is because an insider that spread the rumor that it is being believed. I'm guessing that the person spread that rumor to harm the team and myself in order to leave the team.
In reality, some of the Association teams were accepting money from players monthly and ran the team like an amateur dorm. Later on the Association made a rule saying they could not collect money from players, but some teams were still receiving money with a bank account. Now they have sponsors so they probably are not donig that anymore.
But still to run a team you need sponsors. I'm already deep in it. I've already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to run the team. The team didn't exactly start with wanting an income in mind, but everyone pictured something working out so it's a disappointing.
The reason I continued to operated despite all this is because there were players taht remained. Our recent results have been bad. There are also fans that are still watching and supporting us so it isn't something we can do without caution.
It couldn've our players not even filling the entry to enter in the GSTL, even I couldn't predict how things were going to change. Situations were changing drastically. But I am now going to make the decision.
Even I think it doesn't make sense. But when we first made Slayers, our goal was to make an incredible team with Boxer at the head. Now Boxer is gone, and in this situation I have to play a parent to the players that believe and follow me. I just hope the players don't do things that breaks trusts.
Rumors about players that moved from Slayers to other teams
Ganzi, Taeja, Golden, and Sleep were cases that had no problems leaving the team. Taeja wanted to go and he requested, so we let him go. He didn't necessarily want a foreign team but wanted to move to a different team to play, and Team Liquid sent a request. I'm so proud of him every time I see him perform well after having moved. He's not the type to practice a lot or put effort. Looking at him produces that kind of results despite that; if MMA was the type that worked hard, Taeja is the genius type. If trained well within a system, I think he'll become the best player.
Lastly
The reason why I am revelaing things in detail is because I thought people wouldn't assume and misunderstand the remaining players if I revealed the facts. I have heard all of this straight from the mouths of each of the people invovled. I don't know how they each will react to this article. I'll have to see if they will speak truths that I did not know about, or if they'll say something completely ridiculous.
The conclusion is that whether who is wrong or right, things like the act of outcasting should not happen again. Recently a player from ESF logged into his second account and called Sleep, who is staying at our team house at the moment, a 'Slegi'(it's a mix of the words Slayers and Trash in Korean). They're outcasting so saying bad things isn't a surprise, but ESF must realize how their hypocritical actions of educating players of cultivation while ordering them to outcast people are affecting the young players.
I could have buried all of this quietly. I thought about it for a really long time. ESF says I have no sense of cooperation. Did they really do all that because they thought of us as partners? I think that a group forming and having power is essential to allow the group to do things in the future. But people running ESF didn't even have the basic mindset ready and only focused on displaying the power of the group.
If they really want e-Sports to develop, they should think more about creating situations and space where players can run around freely than restrictions. They all disguise themselves on the outside with words that seem progressive but in reality they are more focused on keeping their food. Because of this unless the people running the ESF is not changed to people that can be trusted, I will not be joining the ESF.
I am clearly revealing this so that people won't spread the rumor of Boxer going to SKT as a coach because Slayers did not join ESF. This is the unmoving reason why Slayers did not join ESF, that the fans have been wondering.
I am not saying all this in detail to complain that it is unfair. If a team goes away, it'll fade from memory, but the players have to stay in this field. I wanted to get rid of all the rumors that would have followed the players where ever they went. This is also the reason why I have kept quiet for so long when the fans wanted to know.
This could become a dirty fight, but I have not told a single lie.
I really want them to tell me themselves if there are truths they have not told me.
New: Preliminary ESF reaction in fomos article.
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.fomos.kr/board/board.php?mode=read&keyno=127949&db=issue
A Fomos article has what appears to be a preliminary statement from eSF chair Mr. Won (also Startale head coach). It seems unlikely that this is all the eSF has to say, and more will probably follow. But for now, here are the statements from the Fomos article.
"We have things to say as well... ...we admit to a degree that there was friction with SlayerS, but it's not something over a couple of days, so if one side comes out emotionally, the problem can't help but expand. It's unfortunate that this situation occurred."
"If we really wanted to ostracize SlayerS, we could have excluded them very thoroughly, but that's not the case at all. Instead, we did a lot together, and worked to treat them the same as other teams even though they were not part of the federation... ...there was a time where [players were] ordered not to practice [with SlayerS players], but it was only for a short period. There is no ban now. At the time, SlayerS kept acting selfishly, so the teams had no choice but to cooperate and penalize them."
A Fomos article has what appears to be a preliminary statement from eSF chair Mr. Won (also Startale head coach). It seems unlikely that this is all the eSF has to say, and more will probably follow. But for now, here are the statements from the Fomos article.
"We have things to say as well... ...we admit to a degree that there was friction with SlayerS, but it's not something over a couple of days, so if one side comes out emotionally, the problem can't help but expand. It's unfortunate that this situation occurred."
"If we really wanted to ostracize SlayerS, we could have excluded them very thoroughly, but that's not the case at all. Instead, we did a lot together, and worked to treat them the same as other teams even though they were not part of the federation... ...there was a time where [players were] ordered not to practice [with SlayerS players], but it was only for a short period. There is no ban now. At the time, SlayerS kept acting selfishly, so the teams had no choice but to cooperate and penalize them."
...and Jessica's reaction to the above.
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190932&search=3&search_pos=&q=
[...omitted...]
It was temporary?
The NASL Season 3 Finals were in July. [Note: She may mean Season 1 or Season 2, given the other dates in the post]
The penalty on our team started after the preliminaries [Note: she may mean regular season] were over, so it must have began at latest by June?
Maybe even before then, but I forget the exact date when the preliminaries ended.
I knew that it was refusal to practice, but I didn't think it would be so severe.
I decided that I couldn't just let it be, and went to talk to coach Won about the serious ostracizing problem in December of last year (we moved the team house on Dec 28th, and I met him in Yeo-ui-Do where our team house was then).
There, I first informed him of our team's stance.
You told me without shame, that it's cheap of you to do so, but you would resort to it to sanction SlayerS.
I couldn't get you to remove the ban, and I continued to appeal it after we moved our team house.
In February, Ryung needed to prepare for a TvT, but I heard that he couldn't find any Terrans. (At the time, Genius had practiced with MMA for the semi-finals, but when Ryung asked MVP players for practice in TvT, he couldn't get help).
Our team's Terrans had a lot of different things on the schedule, so I told him to practice with his friends on other teams, but I learned that we were still being ostracized and banned from practice.
I gave final notice to Mr. Won who as at tournament in the USA at that time, and I finally received an email on March 7th that it had been lifted.
Temporary? That's at least 10 months by rudimentary calculation.
Do you want me to reveal the truth?
Head Coach Won.
I told you clearly, it was something that a Startale player told one of our players very recently.
For whatever reason, acting like a bully can't be forgiven.
[...omitted...]
It was temporary?
The NASL Season 3 Finals were in July. [Note: She may mean Season 1 or Season 2, given the other dates in the post]
The penalty on our team started after the preliminaries [Note: she may mean regular season] were over, so it must have began at latest by June?
Maybe even before then, but I forget the exact date when the preliminaries ended.
I knew that it was refusal to practice, but I didn't think it would be so severe.
I decided that I couldn't just let it be, and went to talk to coach Won about the serious ostracizing problem in December of last year (we moved the team house on Dec 28th, and I met him in Yeo-ui-Do where our team house was then).
There, I first informed him of our team's stance.
You told me without shame, that it's cheap of you to do so, but you would resort to it to sanction SlayerS.
I couldn't get you to remove the ban, and I continued to appeal it after we moved our team house.
In February, Ryung needed to prepare for a TvT, but I heard that he couldn't find any Terrans. (At the time, Genius had practiced with MMA for the semi-finals, but when Ryung asked MVP players for practice in TvT, he couldn't get help).
Our team's Terrans had a lot of different things on the schedule, so I told him to practice with his friends on other teams, but I learned that we were still being ostracized and banned from practice.
I gave final notice to Mr. Won who as at tournament in the USA at that time, and I finally received an email on March 7th that it had been lifted.
Temporary? That's at least 10 months by rudimentary calculation.
Do you want me to reveal the truth?
Head Coach Won.
I told you clearly, it was something that a Startale player told one of our players very recently.
For whatever reason, acting like a bully can't be forgiven.
Supplemental Jessica posts on PlayXP
+ Show Spoiler +
Post 1: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190932&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Summary: Jessica going abroad for filming tomorrow, returning on Monday, will reply to any eSF stuff then.
She has provided Korean media with an email she received in March from Coath Won, saying that the practice ban had been lifted.
Post 2: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4189908&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Summary: Correction: S2con had disbanded before NASL S2, SlayerS was pressured by an assembly of team coaches. TSL also broke the boycott to compete in NASL S2, and faced the same practice-ban as SlayerS. TSL later received an apology and worked things out.
Post 3: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190483&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Post 4: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190738&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Post 5: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190932&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Summary: Jessica going abroad for filming tomorrow, returning on Monday, will reply to any eSF stuff then.
She has provided Korean media with an email she received in March from Coath Won, saying that the practice ban had been lifted.
Post 2: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4189908&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Summary: Correction: S2con had disbanded before NASL S2, SlayerS was pressured by an assembly of team coaches. TSL also broke the boycott to compete in NASL S2, and faced the same practice-ban as SlayerS. TSL later received an apology and worked things out.
Post 3: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190483&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Post 4: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190738&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Post 5: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190932&search=3&search_pos=&q=
Ganzi/IM/SlayerS 2010 Case
LG-IM Coach Hirai's official stance on the 2010 IM/Ganzi/SlayerS situation
+ Show Spoiler +
HEre ya go: LG-IM Coach Hirai explains his side of the Ganzi/SlayerS ordeal. It's not really too important in the big picture of what Jessica is saying, but it's somewhat relevant since she brings it up as the beginning of poor S2con/eSF vs SlayerS relations.
http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=48786
Before I start, I would like to say I apologize for worrying everyone with the bad news. Also, I admit that the team environment on IM was not good right after the team was founded.
Because I was running an amateur StarCraft 1 house before I founded the StarCraft 2 team, about half of the players at the house were still playing StarCraft 1 at first. Also, there were some members who were paying a fee to stay in the house [Note: Common amateur SC1/SC2 house practice. At present, a team cannot receive a membership fee from its players if they wish to be recognized as a pro-team by eSF or GomTV]. However, I could not just kick out all the SC1 players because I started running a SC2 team.
Thus, I gave the amateur SC1 players a certain amount of time so that they could either join a pro-team or move to another house. So during this period, it's true that every day life and the practice environment weren't that good. Also, it was a period where funds were lacking, and the team was being run in a very difficult situation. Some of the players even came to me and offered 50,000 won, 100,000 won ($45~90) for the food budget. I want it to be clear that this was the situation.
In October of 2010, not long after the team was formed, I saw Mvp and Ganzi talking. Ganzi had only played SC2 for about one or two days. There was one seat left in the house, and the SC1 amateurs were starting to leave one by one, and there was one player I wanted to accept once I could handle an extra player. Around that time, he was one of the top level players in the business. However, I trusted Ganzi and gave him that spot. And I informed him beforehand that the team house situation wasn't very good. Ganzi told me that all he needed was a place to play, and he joined the team.
Though Ganzi had only started SC2, I knew that Ganzi had been a diligent player since he was a SC1 amateur, and I believed that he would do well alongside Mvp with time. And it was so, as he gained a lot of skill and took #1 on the ladder in 2.5~3 months.
Because he had improved so much, I wanted to give him a chance in tournaments, so I sent him out in the Danawa tournament as my 'coaches pick' player. The problem was that the night of the tournament, Ganzi suddenly said he wanted to go to SlayerS. I asked him if it was confirmed, and he said he had been informed that it was cleared.
Honestly, from my standpoint, I was very hurt. So I called then SlayerS coach Seong Sang Hoon immediately to see what was going on, and got a reply that they had never agreed to take in Ganzi. I told him that there must have been a misunderstanding, apologized, and ended the call. The next morning, Ganzi packed his things and left the house in the morning.
As he left, Ganzi didn't apologize or leave a word of thanks. The only thing he did after leaving was to contact SlayerS and said that he had left the team. And then the sent me a text. I thought maybe it would be a word of thanks or apology, but instead it was to tell me that because I had called SlayerS to check, he hadn't been able to join, and that he wanted me to clear things up.
I hadn't signed a contract with Ganzi, and it was his decision to go to a team with an environment where he thought he could play well. So it might seem a funny that I'm criticizing his decision, but I think he didn't keep proper etiquette. I had taken on a player who had only played StarCraft for a few days, and I had done things to help him, and that hurt me more. What kind of coach would have taken in a player who had only played for 2~3 days?
I think this misunderstanding became deeper because it became seen as Ganzi moving to SlayerS through shady methods. Also, while Ganzi was at the house, his complaints about the poor environment caused one or two players that I was prepared to accept to go to other teams. This I've confirmed directly from those players. Even if he doesn't bash the team directly, saying things about the team environment or negative things about the team off record, I think is an insult to the team. I don't think it was right to do those things.
Because of this, I brought up Ganzi's behavior at an S2con meeting to the other coaches. At that meeting, Mr. Lee Jun Ho (?), Mr. Won (Startale), Mr. Choi (MVP), Mr. Yoon (ZeNEX), Mr. Park (PRIME), Mr. Kim (fOu, not Choya), and Mr. Lee (TSL) were present. Also, SlayerS coach Mr. Seong was there as well.
I absolutely did not request a suspension for Ganzi there, and I never have asked for one. All I wanted to do was talk to the other teams, and make sure something like that didn't happen again. The main agenda of the day was to make rules regarding transfers, and 'protection of players between coaches.' (??). At that meeting, I told coach Seong that there would be no problem with SlayerS taking Ganzi.
But there was another hurtful event to come. Not long after, Ms. Kim Ga Yeon requested a three way talk regarding the Ganzi case, with all the team coaches and Ganzi present.
According to SlayerS and Ganzi, I had 18 SC1 players in the house, and had received 500,000 won a piece from each of them. Also, they claimed that no one practiced and just goofed off, that the environment was bad, and that I was not qualified to be a head coach.
Additionally, Ganzi was disappointed in me, and had to move to an environment where he could practice properly. That day, I first learned that Ganzi had those kind of feelings. I asked him then, why he hadn't told me those things earlier.
At that meeting, I said that I never made money running a SC1 house. I offered free spots to players who came from poor families, and there were a lot more times when I wasn't able to collect money from the other players. At that time I had 12, not 18 SC1 players in the house, and I hadn't received that much money from them. Of the players who were in bad financial situations I didn't receive any money from, while I received about 400,000 a piece from 6~7 players. Also, I received smaller sums from some of the other players.
I gave the SC1 players time to leave the house, whether it was to return to studies, find a new team house, or join a pro team. If you ask those players now, they will all confirm it as well. Some of them I even called recently to make sure that was the situation at the time. After that period, there were a few players who were at the house, paying house fees.
I acknowledge that as mentioned before, because we shared the space with SC1 players, the environment wasn't the best overall, and general mood wasn't that good. And I admit that I received fees from the players. All those things contributed to a poor environment. But if he really couldn't stand staying in such an environment, I want to ask why that never reached my ears.
Also, I checked Ms. Kim's prepared chatlogs about Ganzi saying negative things about the house, and it was all things that could be easily misunderstood. I personally think that telling a player planning to come to our house to choose carefully, telling him about the environment directly led to him choosing a different team. On this part, even Boxer (who was at the meeting) said it was something that could be misunderstood. All of this was witnessed by the coahes there.
I clearly admitted the things that I should have, and did not object at all to Ganzi going to SlayerS. That was the conclusion of the day. I never asked for a suspension for Ganzi, and I don't believe I have any reason to be sorry to Ganzi even now. Nor do I have any reason to be sorry to SlayerS, who acquired a teamlessGnaiz. This is simply a problem between Ganzi and myself.
Also, it's a misunderstanding that this was start of s2con coaches grouping together to criticize or hate SlayerS, and relations continued afterward. I just hoped that something similar to the Ganzi case wouldn't happen to other teams.
To the end, there's no apology or thanks for Ganzi. Maybe this all happened because no one wanted to speak frankly. Hearing Ganzi say that I was not qualified to be a coach and that the team environment was a mess gave me the motivation to make things better, and it was a turning point for me.
Honestly, I don't know who was the 'victim.' I was hurt at that meeting in front of everyone, and I even considered quitting this business. I'm thankful to my players who stayed on through those bad conditions until now, and I will work even harder for them. I want to do more for my players in the future.
That is all I have to say about Coach Kim's allegations about Ganzi, IM, and SlayerS.
http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=48786
Before I start, I would like to say I apologize for worrying everyone with the bad news. Also, I admit that the team environment on IM was not good right after the team was founded.
Because I was running an amateur StarCraft 1 house before I founded the StarCraft 2 team, about half of the players at the house were still playing StarCraft 1 at first. Also, there were some members who were paying a fee to stay in the house [Note: Common amateur SC1/SC2 house practice. At present, a team cannot receive a membership fee from its players if they wish to be recognized as a pro-team by eSF or GomTV]. However, I could not just kick out all the SC1 players because I started running a SC2 team.
Thus, I gave the amateur SC1 players a certain amount of time so that they could either join a pro-team or move to another house. So during this period, it's true that every day life and the practice environment weren't that good. Also, it was a period where funds were lacking, and the team was being run in a very difficult situation. Some of the players even came to me and offered 50,000 won, 100,000 won ($45~90) for the food budget. I want it to be clear that this was the situation.
In October of 2010, not long after the team was formed, I saw Mvp and Ganzi talking. Ganzi had only played SC2 for about one or two days. There was one seat left in the house, and the SC1 amateurs were starting to leave one by one, and there was one player I wanted to accept once I could handle an extra player. Around that time, he was one of the top level players in the business. However, I trusted Ganzi and gave him that spot. And I informed him beforehand that the team house situation wasn't very good. Ganzi told me that all he needed was a place to play, and he joined the team.
Though Ganzi had only started SC2, I knew that Ganzi had been a diligent player since he was a SC1 amateur, and I believed that he would do well alongside Mvp with time. And it was so, as he gained a lot of skill and took #1 on the ladder in 2.5~3 months.
Because he had improved so much, I wanted to give him a chance in tournaments, so I sent him out in the Danawa tournament as my 'coaches pick' player. The problem was that the night of the tournament, Ganzi suddenly said he wanted to go to SlayerS. I asked him if it was confirmed, and he said he had been informed that it was cleared.
Honestly, from my standpoint, I was very hurt. So I called then SlayerS coach Seong Sang Hoon immediately to see what was going on, and got a reply that they had never agreed to take in Ganzi. I told him that there must have been a misunderstanding, apologized, and ended the call. The next morning, Ganzi packed his things and left the house in the morning.
As he left, Ganzi didn't apologize or leave a word of thanks. The only thing he did after leaving was to contact SlayerS and said that he had left the team. And then the sent me a text. I thought maybe it would be a word of thanks or apology, but instead it was to tell me that because I had called SlayerS to check, he hadn't been able to join, and that he wanted me to clear things up.
I hadn't signed a contract with Ganzi, and it was his decision to go to a team with an environment where he thought he could play well. So it might seem a funny that I'm criticizing his decision, but I think he didn't keep proper etiquette. I had taken on a player who had only played StarCraft for a few days, and I had done things to help him, and that hurt me more. What kind of coach would have taken in a player who had only played for 2~3 days?
I think this misunderstanding became deeper because it became seen as Ganzi moving to SlayerS through shady methods. Also, while Ganzi was at the house, his complaints about the poor environment caused one or two players that I was prepared to accept to go to other teams. This I've confirmed directly from those players. Even if he doesn't bash the team directly, saying things about the team environment or negative things about the team off record, I think is an insult to the team. I don't think it was right to do those things.
Because of this, I brought up Ganzi's behavior at an S2con meeting to the other coaches. At that meeting, Mr. Lee Jun Ho (?), Mr. Won (Startale), Mr. Choi (MVP), Mr. Yoon (ZeNEX), Mr. Park (PRIME), Mr. Kim (fOu, not Choya), and Mr. Lee (TSL) were present. Also, SlayerS coach Mr. Seong was there as well.
I absolutely did not request a suspension for Ganzi there, and I never have asked for one. All I wanted to do was talk to the other teams, and make sure something like that didn't happen again. The main agenda of the day was to make rules regarding transfers, and 'protection of players between coaches.' (??). At that meeting, I told coach Seong that there would be no problem with SlayerS taking Ganzi.
But there was another hurtful event to come. Not long after, Ms. Kim Ga Yeon requested a three way talk regarding the Ganzi case, with all the team coaches and Ganzi present.
According to SlayerS and Ganzi, I had 18 SC1 players in the house, and had received 500,000 won a piece from each of them. Also, they claimed that no one practiced and just goofed off, that the environment was bad, and that I was not qualified to be a head coach.
Additionally, Ganzi was disappointed in me, and had to move to an environment where he could practice properly. That day, I first learned that Ganzi had those kind of feelings. I asked him then, why he hadn't told me those things earlier.
At that meeting, I said that I never made money running a SC1 house. I offered free spots to players who came from poor families, and there were a lot more times when I wasn't able to collect money from the other players. At that time I had 12, not 18 SC1 players in the house, and I hadn't received that much money from them. Of the players who were in bad financial situations I didn't receive any money from, while I received about 400,000 a piece from 6~7 players. Also, I received smaller sums from some of the other players.
I gave the SC1 players time to leave the house, whether it was to return to studies, find a new team house, or join a pro team. If you ask those players now, they will all confirm it as well. Some of them I even called recently to make sure that was the situation at the time. After that period, there were a few players who were at the house, paying house fees.
I acknowledge that as mentioned before, because we shared the space with SC1 players, the environment wasn't the best overall, and general mood wasn't that good. And I admit that I received fees from the players. All those things contributed to a poor environment. But if he really couldn't stand staying in such an environment, I want to ask why that never reached my ears.
Also, I checked Ms. Kim's prepared chatlogs about Ganzi saying negative things about the house, and it was all things that could be easily misunderstood. I personally think that telling a player planning to come to our house to choose carefully, telling him about the environment directly led to him choosing a different team. On this part, even Boxer (who was at the meeting) said it was something that could be misunderstood. All of this was witnessed by the coahes there.
I clearly admitted the things that I should have, and did not object at all to Ganzi going to SlayerS. That was the conclusion of the day. I never asked for a suspension for Ganzi, and I don't believe I have any reason to be sorry to Ganzi even now. Nor do I have any reason to be sorry to SlayerS, who acquired a teamlessGnaiz. This is simply a problem between Ganzi and myself.
Also, it's a misunderstanding that this was start of s2con coaches grouping together to criticize or hate SlayerS, and relations continued afterward. I just hoped that something similar to the Ganzi case wouldn't happen to other teams.
To the end, there's no apology or thanks for Ganzi. Maybe this all happened because no one wanted to speak frankly. Hearing Ganzi say that I was not qualified to be a coach and that the team environment was a mess gave me the motivation to make things better, and it was a turning point for me.
Honestly, I don't know who was the 'victim.' I was hurt at that meeting in front of everyone, and I even considered quitting this business. I'm thankful to my players who stayed on through those bad conditions until now, and I will work even harder for them. I want to do more for my players in the future.
That is all I have to say about Coach Kim's allegations about Ganzi, IM, and SlayerS.
Alicia and Jessica
Alicia's interview with ESFI regarding Jessica's original statement: http://esfiworld.com/news/alicia-slayers-disbanding-looking-foreign-team
Jessica's reply to the interview on PlayXP.com
+ Show Spoiler +
Jessica's reply to Alicia's interview D:
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190968
Alicia doing that kind of interview, hah...
I didn't congratulate you when you took second place twice?
Someone search my twitter between June 11th~14th, and July 13th~15th and post what I wrote to Alicia.
I congratulated him on Twitter, and cheered him up as well, but I didn't get a response from him, so I tried to send him a message via IM asking why he didn't reply, only to hear that he was too busy. Yeah...
I guess I interfered too heavily by making sure he always had two boxes of things to eat, even sending rice and a rice cooker because I was worried about how he would deal with food in the USA.
I focused only on the Team League?
I focused too much on the TeamLeague where all the money goes back to the players?
Why would I focus only on the TeamLeague, where there's nothing in it for me.
I guess you were e a player who wasn't on a team?
Now that I think about, Alicia was too busy asking 'where's my cell phone charger' and looking around after coming back from NASL, to listen to what I had to say about our GSTL preparations.
You didn't like that I was fighting other people?
The first time we got into trouble with the eSF was because I could get you into NASL3 where you took second place [Translator's note: BURN] and I told you that much. Still you haven't said sorry, now I remember.
Not even caring why I was fighting, trying to make it out that I was doing something wrong.
I was still your head coach and team owner......
You had to pay for your own bus trips to the studio after we moved the team house to Gimpo?
That's true. But was it always that way?
I didn't take you to the studio?
So I'm supposed to stop working and take you to the studio?
If I couldn't go because of my own schedule, then Cella always went with you, and I gave him a separate check-card for that.
They used the Taxi, Bus, and Subway together.
Why did I make him take the bus? Because he was losing discipline.
And I made sure you knew that.
But you talk about it like you had to take a bus for a few hours from some backwater.
When the weather was bad, I went to bring you back to the team house a lot of times...
But you only take about what was uncomfortable for yo.
That's why I decided Alicia doesn't have a professional mindset.
You need to stop lying.
Before what you really did wrong comes to light....
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4190968
Alicia doing that kind of interview, hah...
I didn't congratulate you when you took second place twice?
Someone search my twitter between June 11th~14th, and July 13th~15th and post what I wrote to Alicia.
I congratulated him on Twitter, and cheered him up as well, but I didn't get a response from him, so I tried to send him a message via IM asking why he didn't reply, only to hear that he was too busy. Yeah...
I guess I interfered too heavily by making sure he always had two boxes of things to eat, even sending rice and a rice cooker because I was worried about how he would deal with food in the USA.
I focused only on the Team League?
I focused too much on the TeamLeague where all the money goes back to the players?
Why would I focus only on the TeamLeague, where there's nothing in it for me.
I guess you were e a player who wasn't on a team?
Now that I think about, Alicia was too busy asking 'where's my cell phone charger' and looking around after coming back from NASL, to listen to what I had to say about our GSTL preparations.
You didn't like that I was fighting other people?
The first time we got into trouble with the eSF was because I could get you into NASL3 where you took second place [Translator's note: BURN] and I told you that much. Still you haven't said sorry, now I remember.
Not even caring why I was fighting, trying to make it out that I was doing something wrong.
I was still your head coach and team owner......
You had to pay for your own bus trips to the studio after we moved the team house to Gimpo?
That's true. But was it always that way?
I didn't take you to the studio?
So I'm supposed to stop working and take you to the studio?
If I couldn't go because of my own schedule, then Cella always went with you, and I gave him a separate check-card for that.
They used the Taxi, Bus, and Subway together.
Why did I make him take the bus? Because he was losing discipline.
And I made sure you knew that.
But you talk about it like you had to take a bus for a few hours from some backwater.
When the weather was bad, I went to bring you back to the team house a lot of times...
But you only take about what was uncomfortable for yo.
That's why I decided Alicia doesn't have a professional mindset.
You need to stop lying.
Before what you really did wrong comes to light....
New: TIG's interview with Jessica* (This interview took place on September 21, they only now released the article)
+ Show Spoiler [Translation by SeeKeR] +
Source: http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?id=1315258&board=&category=13438&subcategory=&page=1&best=&searchmode=&search=&orderby=&token=
First off, we're curious as to why you requested an interview.
In the past, I had no intentions of revealing private information regarding SlayerS to the public. I figured if anything was explained incorrectly, it would only lead to misunderstandings and speculations so I didn't want to reveal anything. But I decided it's finally time to reveal everything. And I also really want to just let everything off my chest regarding SlayerS. Too many things occurred all at once so I needed some time to sort everything out. The damage was just too big to forget about and move on.
How is the current situation for SlayerS?
MMA and Alicia have been demoted to B team but recent events has caused us to release Alicia. (Alicia has yet to comment on this) Ryung currently plays at home, YugiOh was already practicing from home, CranK was released not because of a withdrawl. Puzzle, CoCa, Min were given time to think about their careers and have decided to pursue League of Legends.
There was a discussion that a boycott for this season's GSTL my take place.
I originally was considering not even attending this seasons' GSTL. I was really concerned since our power roster had gotten cut in half. I even had players on our roster who refused to play for GSTL even though they were on contract. But the rest of the players wanted to go for it so we did. I decided that even though we had no chance of winning the championship, players could still get valuable experience so I went for it with that mindset. Right now, winning or losing is not important. I just want to leave a final impression that SlayerS was a team that got together and headed toward one goal.
What is going on with the roster?
Aside from three players who are currently looking for other teams, we'll be fielding four B teamers and four A teamers for the GSTL. Alicia refused to participate at all ever since last season's GSTL so we eliminated him entirely from the roster.
A lot of fans wish to know why BoxeR went over to SK Telecom T1.
In order to completely explain this we need to go back to the time of when SlayerS was formed. So I would have to explain our past.
What would you like to start with?
I have to start with SlayerS and the SC2 organization. Everything was wrong from the very fist button. SlayerS earned Intel as a sponsor and started off very wealthy. We also had BoxeR. Because of our situation, the organization wanted SlayerS to join them. However, the whole scenery still had yet to be figured out so we decided to just kind of stand by and observe the whole thing before deciding. And then the GanZi incident occurred.
(From here on out, everything else was already translated and explained in this thread so I just translated the parts I had yet to see translated in here)
Players without any contracts have no clause that is forcing them to stay. What happens to the five players with contracts?
SlayerS definitely did not try to force players who had no contracts to stay. And even players with contracts still got sent to the team they wanted to go to if they really wanted to leave. I guess those contracted players will just leave for whatever team they want to join if they want to right? GanZi also signed a contract with us but he wanted to leave so we let him. I hope the players will be able to leave leave thing professionally and not cause anymore reasons for people to lose faith in each other.
Contracts will be terminated on November.
That is correct. If there are any issues with the contract and also promises in that contract that I wasn't able to keep, I'm sure the players would have left with harbored resentments but we've kept all our words from the contracts and we didn't take a dime from the players. We even took BoxeR's money and distributed it along the players and took care of the team that way. As far as I know, Alicia has already found another overseas team that he is going to join but I can't confirm this since he hasn't made any statements about that himself yet. I just hope he doesn't replicate his actions when he does end up joining another team.
Without stable sponsors, operations within a team cannot continue.
In order for a team to remain intact, a team needs sponsors. Although even without sponsors, I could still get by on what I've been doing so far through investments. We had a really great opportunity because of a great offer but a certain player ruined that for us. This is also something I just recently found out but apparently there is this rumor that I took money from our players and ran the team through that.
Who the heck spread this rumor? Everyone on SlayerS already knows that we got by because of BoxeR's own personal funds but the fact that an insider is spreading this kind of rumor maybe makes people this that his information is credible. These are just my thoughts but I think perhaps this person spread this rumor so he could find a way out of SlayerS.
Honestly in the past, KeSPA teams would gather a certain amount of money every month and operate like an amateur team. Later on, they discontinued this process and forbid teams from taking money from the players but I think some teams still kind of did this on the side. But now that we are all operating through sponsors, I don't think this is the case anymore.
However, you still need sponsors to raise a team.
Our situation is almost as if we did a head butt on solid ground. We already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on operating expenses. We didn't do this for revenue purposes but since we wanted a successful team with everyone working together, it was just such a shame that this had to happen.
So why did you continue to operate the team?
We still had players. It's true that our recent results have been rather poor. But we still had loyal fans who continuously cheered on SlayerS so disbanding the team was not some easy decision we could just make.
How much longer do you plan on being with SlayerS?
I'm not sure. It could even get to a point where we can't even field enough players for the GSTL... I can't predict what will happen in the future. Everything is changing so I can't know for sure.
SlayerS has even been called an academy.
Even from my perspective I think that's ridiculous. But in the beginning, the goal was to create the ultimate team led by BoxeR. But we no longer have BoxeR so our players need to trust in me and I had to lead them like a parent. I just hope the players don't lose faith in me.
There are a lot of misunderstandings regarding player transfers to and from SlayerS.
When GanZi, TaeJa, Golden, and Sleep left the team, we had no problems. TaeJa personally stated that he wanted to leave so we let him. He didn't necessarily want to join a foreign team, he just wanted to join a different team. That's when the Team Liquid offer came. I am so happy and filled with joy whenever I see him do well. (the rest of this was already translated in the previously linked thread)
Anything else you would like to say?
The reason I am revealing everything is because I didn't want there to be any lingering misunderstandings or speculations. Everything I am saying I heard from the respective parties. I'm not sure what kind of response I will receive when they read this interview. I mean they might reveal... something they never told me initially... or they might spew up more false information so I'm just going to have to stand by and watch what happens.
Regardless of whose decision it was, bullying is something that should never occur again. There was even a ESF player who called Sleep "SlayerS trash" through a chat. I really think the ESF organization needs to realize what kind of consequence their actions can have and what kind of influence they're presenting to kids by implementing bullying.
I could also have just stayed silent about everything. I debated this for a long time. ESF have stated that I am not capable of being a partner. So because were considered outsiders, that's why they treated us like this? While I do agree that there needs to be power in an organization in order for an organization to keep progressing forward, that organization needs to get their basic mindset in order first and stop relaying just power.
If eSports really wants to progress forward, instead of restrictions, we need to liberate our players more and prepare more stable environments for them. But we only look like this on the outside, because in reality, we seem as if we only care about being able to feed ourselves so unless I become a more reliable manager for the future, I don't think I have any room in the ESF world.
I wanted to reveal all this so I could shut up all the speculations going around about why BoxeR left SlayerS for T1. This is the answer to all the questions the fans have been asking and the reason why SlayerS refused to cooperate with the ESF organization.
I want it to be clear that we are not doing this because we hold a grudge. Teams that disband eventually get forgotten about anyways but the players themselves need to be able to go on on a positive note. I wanted to get rid of all the misunderstandings and get rid of any lasting rumors. I also kept my mouth shut for a while even though the fans were dying to know. There's a chance that this whole situation could turn in to a real ugly battle but I haven't stated any lies. But if there are still any truths out there that haven't been revealed, I am hoping that the respective parties will come out and finally reveal everything.
This is the conclusion to the interview with Jessica. Jessica still had remaining players and a lot of loyal fans who stayed true to SlayerS so she tried very hard to keep SlayerS running. But recent events made her conclude that it was just no longer possible to keep SlayerS intact.
Lastly, Jessica stated that "I have no idea how the ESF organization will respond to this but if they still remain silent and refuse to apologize or speak about the matter, I will reveal all the evidence I hold through my documents to This Is Game."
New: SlayerS_Jessica has requested an official apology from the ESF organization
+ Show Spoiler [Translation by SeeKeR] +
Key things from this article:
- She is requesting a sincere and official apology from the ESF organization.
- She stated that "the current situation has devolved in to a dirty fight. I am disappointed that it has turned out like this. I really would wish the ESF organization would just admit to the mistakes they made against us and make a formal apology. If we look at all the things that the ESF organization members have responded with so far, it is clear that they are just blaming others and creating excuses rather than just apologizing. If this situation continues on, a lot of players could potentially end up getting hurt.
- She concludes with another statement that once again, she wants an apology AND she wants someone from the organization to step up and take responsibility for all their actions.
Ace's response to communities' criticisms towards Coach Won
Post made on facebook by Startale's Ace:
+ Show Spoiler +
Source: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004100198856
The communities are talking. I am only one player so I don't know the details of the inside stories nor can I reveal them. But one thing I want to say is that the Coach Won I know used money from his pockets to run the team and divided the winnings of team leagues or individual leagues among the players, without spending it for operational costs of the team. During times when we did not have sponsors to bring in money for operation, it must have all been debts for him but he didn't take even 1% of the winnings. The players actually discussed and gave the team league winnings to him so that he could use that for operation costs. Someone like this, someone that makes me stay on Startale is being criticized by you people that don't know anything about him. The Startale I know trusts Coach won so much that no players have left Startale thus far. Do you think we're stupid? Stupid enough to be tricked into staying in the team by someone that you guys claim to have such a trash-like character? We are people that think there is no one like Coach Won in this scene. That is why we don't think about leaving him. I don't know about the thoughts of the newer players, but this is my thought and I feel very uncomfortable seeing someone I respect so much being criticized over something petty like this. I wish I could be more brave and have enough power to tell you more but that is not the case. You would ask then, 'Is outcasting Slayer not bad then?' Of course it is bad. It is. He clearly did tell us to not practice with Slayers and TSL, and he took back that order in less than a month. That was something wrong and we the players were surprised by it. But here there is a story that a lot of people don't know. Coach Won is a very well behaved gentleman and thinks that it is better for him to be criticized rather than the players. That is why he let the things of the past go after receiving the criticisms only by himself. I stayed quiet when things came up in the past, but this time I want to give him strength. I respect and trust the man that you people claim is a person with trash-like character. I feel so helpless because this is all I can say. We don't think there is anyone else out there that is like Coach Won. Please, I would be grateful if you would stop the criticisms and wait for the situation to be settled. I know Coach Won's character.
The communities are talking. I am only one player so I don't know the details of the inside stories nor can I reveal them. But one thing I want to say is that the Coach Won I know used money from his pockets to run the team and divided the winnings of team leagues or individual leagues among the players, without spending it for operational costs of the team. During times when we did not have sponsors to bring in money for operation, it must have all been debts for him but he didn't take even 1% of the winnings. The players actually discussed and gave the team league winnings to him so that he could use that for operation costs. Someone like this, someone that makes me stay on Startale is being criticized by you people that don't know anything about him. The Startale I know trusts Coach won so much that no players have left Startale thus far. Do you think we're stupid? Stupid enough to be tricked into staying in the team by someone that you guys claim to have such a trash-like character? We are people that think there is no one like Coach Won in this scene. That is why we don't think about leaving him. I don't know about the thoughts of the newer players, but this is my thought and I feel very uncomfortable seeing someone I respect so much being criticized over something petty like this. I wish I could be more brave and have enough power to tell you more but that is not the case. You would ask then, 'Is outcasting Slayer not bad then?' Of course it is bad. It is. He clearly did tell us to not practice with Slayers and TSL, and he took back that order in less than a month. That was something wrong and we the players were surprised by it. But here there is a story that a lot of people don't know. Coach Won is a very well behaved gentleman and thinks that it is better for him to be criticized rather than the players. That is why he let the things of the past go after receiving the criticisms only by himself. I stayed quiet when things came up in the past, but this time I want to give him strength. I respect and trust the man that you people claim is a person with trash-like character. I feel so helpless because this is all I can say. We don't think there is anyone else out there that is like Coach Won. Please, I would be grateful if you would stop the criticisms and wait for the situation to be settled. I know Coach Won's character.
Ace's explanation of his previous post
Ace has deleted his facebook post translated above, and has posted something new that explains his post:
+ Show Spoiler +
Source: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004100198856
It seems there was room for controversy, what I did not mean that outcasting them was something petty, I meant that it was petty of people to criticize after only hearing one side of the story. Practices are always done after calculating self-interest. Even if you help a player, you don't know when you might run into the player in a tournament so you have to hide your main style. Let's say Team A and Team B are having a match. If you're closer to Team A than Team B, yet Team A is the harder opponent to face, you help Team B. Helping practice is not a matter of being close or not close. It's up the the individual player and the team. It appears that it seemed like I admitted that there was a training embargo, but that's not what I meant.
It seems there was room for controversy, what I did not mean that outcasting them was something petty, I meant that it was petty of people to criticize after only hearing one side of the story. Practices are always done after calculating self-interest. Even if you help a player, you don't know when you might run into the player in a tournament so you have to hide your main style. Let's say Team A and Team B are having a match. If you're closer to Team A than Team B, yet Team A is the harder opponent to face, you help Team B. Helping practice is not a matter of being close or not close. It's up the the individual player and the team. It appears that it seemed like I admitted that there was a training embargo, but that's not what I meant.
Ryung to Axiom & MMA deciding between Axiom and EG
Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/top-starcraft-ii-players-on-the-move-6398482
Reported by Slasher
**Edit 1: Updated translation posted by frequency
**Edit 2: I had already finished about 65% of my trasnlation when I found out there was already one being done.
I said screw it but after an hour I realized I didn't want to waste it and so I added an unnecessary 2nd translation.
My thread! I add whatever! Don't judge me! D:
**Edit 3: Pretty formatting done by wo1fwood, you get three translation versions to choose from nao :D
**Edit 4: Added facebook post made by Startale's Ace.
**Edit 5: Added two articles from TIG, translation done and provided by SeeKeR.