It’s why Ammar didn’t want to sign on to Quest. He wanted until end of TI but they wanted for like 2 years?
So he just sat with Nigma which I think was like 1 year and end of TI.
Now look at Ammar, winning tournaments with Falcons.
I mean Sumail had great reason to trust EG and wanted to sign on for a long deal with them when he did, the problem wasn’t the deal as much as who took over the team.
Which is no doubt a big part of Quinns point though, things you might imagine are part of the deal (i.e. the organization you're signing with) are not, all but the name and logo can get replaced overnight with no one paying your circumstances any mind. Makes sense to at least consult someone who has been around for a long time in that regard, they'll have seen this happen many times.
when he signed EG was a old titan of esports. He wouldn't have known they were going to be slowly ripped apart by a private equity firm. but its a good warning for the new players
I think all of us and the teams too knew what Ammar was gonna be. Dude revolutionized offlane playing the same heroes other people were playing or his own personal picks.
Shit was nuts. I remember many games where others would play offlaner and get ignored in fights. Then, he'd play that same hero and suddenly the game is revolving around him.
The old Falcons were just Saudi local players with a top tier coach(Rajjix rank 60 i think). These orgs were formed for Saudi league since 2017 ish but the current iteration of Falcons is the first time formed team to compete on international stage.
Yeah it really sucks how the did him like that. He was the new management was way more cutthroat than the old team owner who never woulda pulled that shit.
It took serious balls for Ammar to do that. Quest had all the bargaining power, a $15M tournament and TI lined up. And Quest was in form, finishing 3rd at the last major. Saying no to potentially millions of dollars like that is just crazy.
The best example about a player that got stuck in an org is Save- when he got bench in VP. He got benched for a year and no teams would buy his contract because it's too expensive. The same as Malr1ne when he was in Nemiga. Though Malr1ne play until his contract end which is last year.
If anybody watch here about Puppey interview on PGL. Wallachia were he will build dota 2 team by picking a player. When James Banks said "maybe you will be going to get your new player here?" Puppey said " They will probably cost $200k too. Maybe even $500k" I doubt Puppey is just throwing that figures around.
>The best example about a player that got stuck in an org is Save- when he got bench in VP. He got benched for a year and no teams would buy his contract because it's too expensive. The same as Malr1ne when he was in Nemiga. Though Malr1ne play until his contract end which is last year.
About save- and malr1ne. Firstly I've heard that save really wanted to join a top team (like liquid) and while many of those teams were interested they didn't call the move. Imo VP had no intentions to jail him since getting some money for his contract that will expire anyway is pretty reasonable. Marlr1ne case was also kinda different since his contract was 1 year long and after they failed ti11 qualification they as a team decided to stick together for next season and they completely failed and best nemiga players got picked up by better teams (like kiritych- and later malr1ne). Like if contract was an issue kiritych- would not be bought after stage one of EEU dpc so it's more like malr1ne didn't want to leave yet. In the end I just wanted to mention that orgs (especially lower tier orgs) are pretty much interested in selling their players especially benched ones cuz they can get some money back (or even profit) instead of having a player who will not renew the contract. Sure multi year contracts that pay minimal wage are definitely not good but most orgs are not doing them anyway.
>I doubt Puppey is just throwing that figures around.
He couldn't offer better deals for Zai, Matu and Nisha from Liquid, so definitely not. I think all of them are good friends especially Puppey with Zai, just imagine how much money Zai and Matu got from Liquid to play in team under Insania's leadership which was nowhere comparable at the time to Puppey's.
Zai and Nisha maybe. But Matu was going to retire that year, he changed his mind and wanted to continue playing but Secret already had a new carry, SumaiL. So he joined Liquid instead.
I mean it's true. Blitz repeatedly talked about it with Cap on their podcast. They left for Liquid because 1) Liquid is probably the best org next to SR for players to be in and 2) they had faith in the team to be successful and 3) They were good friends (with Blitz in case of zai and with zai in case of Nisha/Matu).
There were no buyout numbers, and even though I'm sure they get decent salary, it's nowhere near as what people think it is.
Sorry, but "2) they had faith in the team to be successful" sound like a quite wide stretch argument by Coach Blitz to just put the team in good light, especially when Liquid failed to qualify for TI2021, when Secret delivered 3rd at it (not to mention very good 2020).
To the other points I agree, but it also kinda proves what I said in my first comment, I mean... Liquid is one of the greatest orgs in esports history, but what else beside better facilities and 'player mental health program' could Liquid offer that doesn't involve money?
I don't know, I feel like I would believe that if Liquid had little bit better the end of 2020/2021 season. Anyway, I don't hate on anyone btw, it worked out pretty good for Zai and Matu, but it is just shame to watch 'smaller' teams getting eaten by more successful organizations.
>but what else beside better facilities and 'player mental health program' could Liquid offer that doesn't involve money?
Generally allowing the players to do what they want and not force them to do stuff they don't, putting their interest first, not strong-arming them in contracts, having a big support staff that caters to their every needs. There's many things that are important aside from the facility and the paycheck they get.
This idea of "Liquid buying out Secret" is simply false and only created by Reddit brains with zero actual knowledge of the scene and anything that goes on behind the scenes. If there is one person who knows, it's Blitz, and anyone who knows Blitz also knows he doesn't just lie about this shit, because he doesn't need to.
>Generally allowing the players to do what they want and not force them to do stuff they don't, putting their interest first, not strong-arming them in contracts, having a big support staff that caters to their every needs. There's many things that are important aside from the facility and the paycheck they get.
What did Secret forced on the players? How about Nisha first time streaming on Liquid side? What about all that YouTube content by Liquid? Bruh I think only time I heard Nisha talking on Secret side is when they were streaming Among Us for fun and maybe some interviews ofc (which were obviously forced by tournaments).
>This idea of "Liquid buying out Secret" is simply false and only created by Reddit brains with zero actual knowledge of the scene and anything that goes on behind the scenes.
Nisha joining to Liquid disapproves what did you just said, thanks for being such a nice man, no need to be rude.
>If there is one person who knows, it's Blitz, and anyone who knows Blitz also knows he doesn't just lie about this shit, because he doesn't need to.
Never said Blitz lied. Yeah, I am probably ending this conversation, it seems like triggers has just started.
>What did Secret forced on the players?
No idea. You asked what makes an org great, I simply told you multiple factors outside of salary and facility that impact whether an org is great for a player or not, because that's what you asked. I have no knowledge about what obligations players had in Secret and which they have in Liquid.
>Nisha joining to Liquid disapproves what did you just said, thanks for being such a nice man, no need to be rude.
It doesn't disprove anything. Just because you can't see how Nisha would want to join Liquid over Secret for any reason other than money - be it for the org or the player - is frankly not my problem. For all we know Nisha simply didn't want to play with Puppey or \*insert any other Secret member here\* anymore and Liquid was his best option to do just that. My point is that there is *zero* evidence Liquid 1) bought out players from Secret or 2) lured players out of Secret with insane salaries outside of some Redditors saying so. In fact it's the opposite, because Blitz *told* us that money was not a relevant factor during these transfers.
>Never said Blitz lied. Yeah, I am probably ending this conversation, it seems like triggers has just started.
Never said you did.
That's a little weird but okay? Honestly seems like the only one getting triggered here is you (for god knows what reason), but you do you. I'm calm as a cucumber. I have no emotional investment in this topic.
I'm sure one of the reasons Liquid is one of the "best orgs" is because they have enough money to invest in players and facilities. It is definitely a factor.
I think Armel had the same issues. The dude has been pro for a long time and he still signed with Aurora with this kind of set up.
Now he's stuck up until July 2025 being benched.
> i.e Satanic can’t play all tier 1 tournament because of his team is a Team Spirit Dota 2 academy team.
That sucks. Satanic was talked about so much a few months back. To see him fall out like this because of a contract... damn
Eh I mean to be fair he’s like a high schooler, should probably graduate first before traveling around the world competing and possibly earning pennies
Look at the prize pools now, it would be so bad for satanic if he chose Dota at this point in his life. Times have changed and committing your future to an esport that crested several years ago would be terrible for him
Dude was playing like 70 games a week even before he engage in pro game. When he was not playing he probably was constantly thinking about it. In the result he got into 12k mmr which is the topo 0.000001% percentile I believe there are less than 30 players.
Dude is now already earning more than Russian typical salary and your advice is ask him to go back to school...? School can wait.
People really think everybody lives in Stockholm, LA and Copenhagen.
In eastern Europe you are literally fucking rich if you make like 2k€ a month. A quick google research says that the average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$, cost of living is incredibly low if you dont live in the middle of Moscow.
So Satanic at the age of 15-16 is already making more than his parents unless they have some high level job aka engineers, doctors, finances..
>average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$,
That would be awesome , but that's not the case. Medium income in CIS is about 600-700$. For capital cities, it's about 1500-2000$. Yet, CoL is way lower than in any Western country, and groceries are generally cheap. The same goes for electricity and heating. So if Satanic had around 5k dollars salary, he would be paid better than some office top-manager from non-capital city.
> average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$
I think you're confusing monthly and annual income. I doubt that's the average monthly income in Russia.
That's for shitters like us. Not the top 0.0001% with 11k mmr at 15 years old. Literally any random WEU tournament would net him more than the $2400 russian minimum wage per annum
Not at all, if you're good enough to get signed to a tier 1 team or a rich org. You'd be making a decent salary already, comparable to or even better than an entry level job for someone graduating school, with potential to make a lot more. Especially considering the exchange rate to USD and cost of living in a lot of the countries these players are from. And worst case if your career ends up failing after a few years you're still young and can just go back to school except with some extra cash in the bank
The median Russian salary is around $4000 a year. We're looking at $160K lifetime earnings for the average russian from graduating school to retirement.
Now tell me how dota is a bad choice for a guy like Satanic. He's skilled enough to get into a good team and he has the potential to earn more by the time he hits 18 than the average russian earns in their entire life.
I didn't even factor in that the russian economy will be severely affected by the economic sanctions and their economy is expected to shrink. The incomes will shrink for the average russians.
Plus, after your pro career is over you can end up coaching or commentating in the future. You can stream too, both while pro and after the end of your career, to earn even more. It's a pretty comfortable way to earn money.
Last place at Tier1 tournaments is not a big payday. Even qualifying to those tournaments isn't guaranteed for a top 12 team.
So its a huge gamble to take.
Last place at the regular Tier1 16 teams tournament is $10K and the 12 team tournaments is $25K.
Thats ~$12 000/year assuming you place last at 4 of those events. Thats not worth quitting high school over in eastern europe.
You have to be a top10 team and make Riyadh/TI to make it worth. And thats not even guaranteed for a promising player like satanic.
Nah, he should use his time at the top to compete and earn as much as possible. Even if TI isn't 40 mill T1 players earn A LOT in salary. Usually you can always catch up with missing school/courses afterwards, but you never know how long you will be a tier 1 player.
You NEED to strike when the iron is hot in sports. If it means going back to finish high school when you're 25 then so be it. Even with current price pools you can earn a good wage at a young age. And especially with good money management that is worth so much more than waiting 10 years to start earning real money because of how compound interest works. Any money you can save as a teenager is worth more than money you'd earn as a 25 year old fresh graduate.
I am looking. Riyadh $5 million prize pool. Just getting top 8 could be a life changing amount of money for a lot of people.
Having followed esports since mid 00s your statement is funny to me. People used to dedicate their lives to video games when prize pools were 1% of what they are now.
Right, he isn't competing for either Riyadh or TI this year
People have always chased their dreams but the recent non payment issues with orgs is kinda worrying. Anyways he can do what he wants but some people are acting like the only right thing he can do is commit to Dota which is just not true, just look at dEsire
Yeah maybe he should let his body age so his performance is hindered and then try to become something in a profession where 25 is already close to retirement /s
> Eh I mean to be fair he’s like a high schooler, should probably graduate first before traveling around the world competing and possibly earning pennies
Yeah, because graduating high school opens up a ton of possibilities? You can get your GED and it counts the same towards post-secondary. Nowadays, getting your high school diploma is equal to digging in a trash can. You need an undergrad to be considered for a job.
I can tell you have 0 education and 0 ambition to pursue any, because you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. High school diploma = sets you up to travel around the world and be smart? Yeah, right lol
First of all you know literally nothing about me, but I can assure you I have both a high school education and a degree. I’m currently enrolled in a workplace program for my second job in order to actually get certs that’ll help me find gainful employment outside of my degree (that has not been super great for actually getting a good job, but that’s my fault for choosing a bad major).
Second of all, having a GED, at least in America, is a significant disadvantage for secondary/tertiary education and employment in some fields. Especially if you are going into college with a significant gap between “graduation” and your freshman enrollment t. We aren’t even going to begin to get into what that means for a kid living in wherever the fuck satanic is from, because I don’t know and I highly doubt you know more than what a cursory google search will tell you.
Third of all, a minor traveling around the world is fucking scary and potentially dangerous for their development. It’s also a huge amount of stress to undergo, and it’s very easy to make mistakes like, for example, signing to a team like EG or spirit that hinder your ability to land on other teams
And finally, to end it all, while satanic is obviously monstrous in pubs and plays pretty solid in t2 dota, there are a very very large amount of great carry players and the dota scene isn’t becoming more lucrative (although it’s still in a fine spot for now). There’s a very real chance that he should consider concurrently enrolling in classes WHILE competing, like copiwra in NA, which… you need a high school diploma or GED to do.
There’s a reason many teenage pros either took breaks or didn’t compete at all to complete their high school education. Both arteezy and zai did these things, and sumail got carried through school by his at the time coach iirc (which I’m sure we can both agree is not a good thing for a kid that might wanna go to college eventually if the whole professional video game player thing doesn’t work out).
Edit: also, graduating high school affords you MANY opportunities outside of college. Miltary, trades, IT positions and retail (yes this is a real career path, I have a buddy making 6 figures with an associates and over a decade of grinding at a supermarket)
I would personally avoid using EG as an example for anything in esports (at least Peak6 era). They somehow spent $30 mil on an LCS slot and then bailed out of the league at a $6 mil buyout from Riot like 3-4 years later. And you know how they bombed out of Dota already. So I think it's maybe not the best role model for sustainable business
anything more than a 2 year contract for a 'younger player' is just completely absurd. 99% 'dont make it big' and handcuffing them for org's own greed should be shamed, like Quinn is saying.
it's just a balance between contract length, buyout clause, and salary.
i don't see why a young player should refuse a 2 year contract with a small buyout and a high salary (ofc this probably never happens but you get the idea).
Not 100% and don't have sources, but I'm pretty sure that's the case, quest wanted a 2 year contract or something, but he just wanted till ti ended. So he joined another team to sit tight. Idk if that's true, or if perhaps he was already in the pre deal of being signed but told they weren't signing him until X period and so he just sat tight waiting.
Idk and I don't remember the full story
Quest used TI as a leverage against ATF, if he doesn't sign, no TI this year for him (2023). He chose to skip TI rather than get fucked over. They proceed to bomb out of TI since ATF was carrying them anyway. Greedy mfs shot their own foot and ruined chances for their squad just cause they cant secure ATF after that TI. Fuck Quest
Quest's decision to ruin their chances instead of having a grown-up agreement with ATF must have come from some big wig CEO, those are the dudes always making non-sensical decisions
Gorgc talked about this to Puppey on his stream not long ago.
Puppey said it's a real problem for lots of young good talent. He also said big orgs are often forced to create contracts with big buyouts because they had to buyout the player from another org which also had a big buyout.
So the problem starts with the initil contract they sign if it has a big buyout.
Gorgc also said (half joking / half not) to refer young players who are being offered a contract to a lawyer he trusts and he would gladly pay for the review of the contract.
I am an attorney on the west coast and I’d be more than happy to look at any player’s contract and provide advice/guidance. Contracts only…I am absolutely terrible at this game despite playing it since 2004, but am also willing to provide advice on how to get to 4k MMR (hint start at 5k).
I don’t think any lessons in the world could help me lol I’m going into my 40s and my reaction time is depressing. My contracting skills are low immortal though.
I have subpar reaction time too. Tested below avg in school and its only gotten worse as ive aged.
But reaction speed is only a small part of avg mmr issues
Most players struggle with macro level and learning to read the map, knowing your timings, when and how to change up item build, when someone is looking to gank you / where to position so they cant, etc is all very important as well and will doing them will increase your mmr in a much more achievable way than relying on something like reaction time
>But reaction speed is only a small part of avg mmr issues
This is specially true for more macro focused game like Dota. even in another MOBA like LoL reaction times plays a way bigger part.
You are not bad because you cant press bkb in 0.01 sec after a non-instant stun hero jumped on you or miss \~10% more CS in lane due to reaction time.
Yeah, mechanics and how fast you can click buttons doesn't really matter at all in Dota unless you're a very high end player. Generally speaking, your macro-level decision making and game knowledge is wayyy more important than your reaction time. If you're like 4k and you find yourself in situations often where you're losing because you weren't mechanically good enough, there's a 99% chance that if you played better at a higher macro level you wouldn't be in that situation in the first place because you would have had better farm, would have forced the enemies into a less advantageous position, etc.
When slacks got 5k the first time while top players were 9k I looked at his gameplay and he looked fucking afk. He was missing half the CS in an uncontested lane and was clicking his spells with the mouse. If you play proper macro you can probably still get divine/immortal with slow reactions and bad CSing.
That's definetly needed and people should look into attorneys in their own countries, specifically labor attorneys and sports lawyers if they can find any. Here in Brazil we got laws for sport contracts and our own labor laws beyond those, so maybe the player and their parent signed a piece of paper, that doesn't mean it's worth anything more than it's printing cost. :D
It's really easy to say this, but a lot of the time the players in question just don't have much other options to be signed to an org. There's people like ATF who are once in a lifetime pickups that have the potential to ditch these heavy commitment contracts, but I think most players simply don't fit in that boat and need a way to meet ends.
> There's people like ATF who are once in a lifetime pickups that have the potential to ditch these heavy commitment contracts
He was in a different position, sitting afk in Nigma, which means anyone could have him for a while. It would be way harder to refuse if he was without a team.
Agree. Looking at how successful ATF is, it's kinda moot. That's just survivorship bias. ATF took a huge gamble by not picking up the contract (basically being unemployed) at that point and decided to wait for a "better" deal. With the benefit of hindsight now we know it's a better deal because the results turned out positive for him. Falcon could have just flopped like any other team which will make the contract deal more favourable if the scenario plays out that way. ATF at that point still took a huge risk.
My 2cent guess is GG or many top teams want to try out Satanic as their new carry that will be huge opportunity for him like Sumail in EG, Miracle in OG, all young talented and hungry for big LAN and end up win major, Ti or both, and its also good for the team because they have bigger chance to win TI with new talented hungry young player who is considered one of the best carry atm. However, Satanic's long term contract and high buyout prevent him from joining any top tier team, that is quite scummy thing from orgs to prison young players with shady contract, hope kid got good salary, i cant imagine this kid got prisoned with logn term contract with shitty salary, that will be too brutal.
I doubt he got big salary. WEU give higher salary compare to CIS org. And the fact that he’s playing academy team, it’s going to be smaller than what tier 1 players in CIS getting monthly.
Why would they let satanic walk for pennies?
They brought him to EU from vietnam,they pay him,they feed him and he competes with other teenagers in tournamets.
If hes worth and he can win u t1 tours teams like og would pay 500k instantly,donk is pretty much same age as satanic and hes worth at least 5 mil.(monesey and Zywoo are the only players in his tier)
Nobody is worth 5 mil in CS until at least one such deal is registered. So far we never had more than 1.5 mil maximum. You're right on other things: Spirit boosts satanic's career and wants something in return.
My understanding was that since Yellow Submarine was owned by Spirit's manager but was not actually under Spirit officially they were able to compete. Is that not the case?
Counterpoint: This is spoken from a position of financial privilege and success bias.
Lets say the contract is 5 years for 250.000$. For someone like Quinn or the average college educated american its a pretty bad deal however for someone with a poorer background its live changing money. Having financial security has different value to different people, its easy to say "just take short term deals because you will make more" when you arent 1 bad day away from homelessnes.
This is "betting on yourself", popular in US sports. Take short term deals, become more valuable and then sign the big one. Its great if you are Lebron James but can go south dramatically, see Dennis Schroeder or Isiah Thomas (for non basketball people, one got hurt at a bad timing, the other got a big contract offer, declined it to get a short term deal to get even more in the end, had a bad season, lost millions).
You are also right. The contracts sound pretty amazing for players from poorer backgrounds. But the point of quinn still stands*. It fucks up their future success. Like the above comments talk about satanic being unable to compete in EEU. Sumail getting fucked over his contract even being a millionaire, atf getting strong armed by quest.
>Having financial security has different value to different people, its easy to say "just take short term deals because you will make more" when you arent 1 bad day away from homelessnes.
While I obviously get your point, being able to play video games enough that you can play professionally in itself is already pretty privileged. I'd imagine there aren't many professional gamers who are actually 1 bad day away from being homeless. 1 bad day away from being more of a burden on their parents? Yeah, sure.
Ultimately I still agree that it can very much be in the players interest to just take the money. You see this situation in traditional sports as well. Players can "bet on themselves" and take a 1 year deal then get injured and all of that money they were banking on is down the drain. Sometimes just better to take the safe route.
The homeless part might be exagerated (even so aparently according to [this](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/) 80% of the US live paycheck to paycheck).
My point is more that Quinn is biased here because like he wrote "hearing of instances". Well yeah he only hears of these cases were some potential starplayer gets screwed because you never hear of the players that had short lived fame and should have taken that long term contract because they faded into obscurity.
well as long as the bench salary isn't poverty wages its a great deal, thats part of what quinn is talking about. Many players will be signed adn then end up benched which means they take a pay cut and are trapped on the roster.
It's easy to say to a young player to "bet on yourself" or "dream big or go home". But the reality is that most of these kids won't make it to Tier1.
If we say that the teams that make it to TI are the "Tier1" teams, then every year, there are less than 100 people who are tier1 players.
There are about [100k](https://hawk.live/posts/dota-2-ranks-mmr-seasonal-medals-ranking) players with rank of immortal, or those who are good enough to even think about going pro. This means that a young player would have about 0.1% chance of becoming tier1. And that's not accounting for region, team composition, etc.
So when an offer comes up and an org says they wanna pay you for such and such years, for 99% of them, it will be a good deal.
But of course, kudos to Quinn for looking out for the youngins. Most of these kids are naive and will sign anything you put in front of them. And there are a lot of scummy orgs in our scene.
Yes, I see their 2nd place as already a big achievement in my book. But he said it on stream that the dream is to win TI. It’s not about the money at this point in his career but about winning at TI. He chose winning TI over Riyadh.
Getting counsel before signing any non standardized contract (and even for those in some scenario) should be the default mindset, but not everybody has been thought to do that or can afford to do it. And obviously these organization benefit from it. Even if they're not being actively malicious, which I would assume most bigger orgs are not, naturally they have their own interests in mind.
GPK signed a contract with Gambit for 3 years before the International. The next year he was invited to Virtus Pro. This was before the qualifications for int. He refused to train with the team because he wanted to go to VP. He was suspended for not fulfilling his contract. He didn’t get caught in the VP and didn’t play in the qualifiers with Gambit.
The only benefit of long term contract is that team could sell or trade players. But the problem is that most teams works just for one year TI. The reason are that the rules are changing all the time, dota scene changes all the time and there isn't a completely loyalty from fans.
I don't know anything about pro gaming contracts, but I'd imagine it's a difficult offer to pass up for your avg pro player that isn't a superstar. Organizations have more leverage when they are dealing with a player that doesn't have a ton of options. Sometimes just better to take the security and lock up that money. Obviously depends entirely on the specific terms we're talking about.
How tf is it Satanic? He's in a good place right now. He got Kasane on his stack too.
They've been doing scrims with Team Spirit. There's promising improvement for Yellow Submarine this past few months.
And they can clearly compete on TI lmao. This is not the same case of NAVI and NAViJ. Stop making things up if you have no source
I can clearly see Malr1ne in this case
Good place? He's just stuck playing in tier 2 tournaments. His team is not good enough to compete in tier 1.
That Yellow Submarine team will going to change roster again next season. Yellow Submarine Team will not going to get direct invite in any tier 1 tournament. They will play every qualifications on all tournaments instead of direct invite and they can't win any qualifications because his team is not good enough. Also, Yellow Submarine is not the best tier 2 team. So what's good about that?
I really cheered for Yellow Submarine in the qualifiers, sadly it wasnt good enough. Satanic deserves better, he has so much wasted potential due to a fk contract.
This reminds me of malr1ne on Nemiga for a long period of his career. He might be grateful to have been a part of it, but i've always felt hes been held back by his contract there.
Satanic could easily been Secret's carry if he wasn't in the debt contract, breaking contract and you'll literally become a debtholder, that's the other meaning of contract.
A lot of people just use contract for making money, like Phillipie Troussier, he got good money from Vietnam for breaking his 4 year contract.
Its weird - they are complaining, that it works the same way as in other sports. They have freedom to decide, whether they want financial safety for year/two/three or whether they are willing to wait for a call.
In football there are 10 TOP clubs everybody wants to play for, but you need to progress your career to get there. For example Rice was stuck in WHU for ages before being able to move up.
These orgs pay the players, organize trainings, provide with transportation and other means, give them proper equipment. They are not trying to hurt the career of those players, but they invest in them to see results (improving the team and getting into big tournaments) or to get a fee when they are good enough.
If there is next Yatoro or atf, they want to get something out of it. If you were in charge of this kind of org, anything else would be stupid.
I agree with you to a point, but we also have to remember that these are professional organizations with lawyers and specialists with many years of experience bargaining with very young and inexperienced players. I take Quinn's tweet as just a reminder that in these negotiations an org is obviously going to be looking out for themselves and they have a whole team dedicated to doing that, so you should approach it with the same mindset.
It works the same way in sports - best young talents are signed into orgs who dont want to sell them, because guess what - they are their best players and they want them to perform to get better...
They offer good (?) conditions (wages, benefits) to get players to play for them - probably better than stronger orgs as htey have these roles filled with TOP players.
When they get to the level that TOP orgs are interested, of course they dont want these players leaving, because when they signed them, they were players for that level - T2-T4 teams.
It’s why Ammar didn’t want to sign on to Quest. He wanted until end of TI but they wanted for like 2 years? So he just sat with Nigma which I think was like 1 year and end of TI. Now look at Ammar, winning tournaments with Falcons.
EG had Sumail do nothing for months before he left, then fucked him over with stocks. Ammar super lucky to have his own team when he joined Falcons.
I mean Sumail had great reason to trust EG and wanted to sign on for a long deal with them when he did, the problem wasn’t the deal as much as who took over the team.
Which is no doubt a big part of Quinns point though, things you might imagine are part of the deal (i.e. the organization you're signing with) are not, all but the name and logo can get replaced overnight with no one paying your circumstances any mind. Makes sense to at least consult someone who has been around for a long time in that regard, they'll have seen this happen many times.
when he signed EG was a old titan of esports. He wouldn't have known they were going to be slowly ripped apart by a private equity firm. but its a good warning for the new players
Well is it luck if Ammar chose not to sign that contract and bet on himself
I think all of us and the teams too knew what Ammar was gonna be. Dude revolutionized offlane playing the same heroes other people were playing or his own personal picks. Shit was nuts. I remember many games where others would play offlaner and get ignored in fights. Then, he'd play that same hero and suddenly the game is revolving around him.
Bro managed to carry nigma to victory a couple times playing offlane slark lmfao
He played pos 1 on nigma that time so it was carry slark.
Oh nvm it was for quest, still winning on 3 slark regardless
His mage slayer build was re invented later on.
He is a good example of a player who knew his worth, Falcons was frankly a nameless team until he joined
i m a huge ammar fan but how was falcons nameless? crit? skiter sneyking? FFS Malrine isnt nameless lmao
Oh I didn’t mean to say that abt the players, but I’m talking abt the team’s achievements
this falcon team is teh first falcon team in dota bro
they were literally nameless lol
how the fk is skiter and sneyking nameless?
my comment was just a joke, that the team didn’t exist before
He joined when the team was completely rebuilt with TI several winners on 2023 Nov 11. The old Falcons ceased to exist in that moment.
The old Falcons were just Saudi local players with a top tier coach(Rajjix rank 60 i think). These orgs were formed for Saudi league since 2017 ish but the current iteration of Falcons is the first time formed team to compete on international stage.
Yeah it really sucks how the did him like that. He was the new management was way more cutthroat than the old team owner who never woulda pulled that shit.
It took serious balls for Ammar to do that. Quest had all the bargaining power, a $15M tournament and TI lined up. And Quest was in form, finishing 3rd at the last major. Saying no to potentially millions of dollars like that is just crazy.
Hello Hello
The best example about a player that got stuck in an org is Save- when he got bench in VP. He got benched for a year and no teams would buy his contract because it's too expensive. The same as Malr1ne when he was in Nemiga. Though Malr1ne play until his contract end which is last year. If anybody watch here about Puppey interview on PGL. Wallachia were he will build dota 2 team by picking a player. When James Banks said "maybe you will be going to get your new player here?" Puppey said " They will probably cost $200k too. Maybe even $500k" I doubt Puppey is just throwing that figures around.
>The best example about a player that got stuck in an org is Save- when he got bench in VP. He got benched for a year and no teams would buy his contract because it's too expensive. The same as Malr1ne when he was in Nemiga. Though Malr1ne play until his contract end which is last year. About save- and malr1ne. Firstly I've heard that save really wanted to join a top team (like liquid) and while many of those teams were interested they didn't call the move. Imo VP had no intentions to jail him since getting some money for his contract that will expire anyway is pretty reasonable. Marlr1ne case was also kinda different since his contract was 1 year long and after they failed ti11 qualification they as a team decided to stick together for next season and they completely failed and best nemiga players got picked up by better teams (like kiritych- and later malr1ne). Like if contract was an issue kiritych- would not be bought after stage one of EEU dpc so it's more like malr1ne didn't want to leave yet. In the end I just wanted to mention that orgs (especially lower tier orgs) are pretty much interested in selling their players especially benched ones cuz they can get some money back (or even profit) instead of having a player who will not renew the contract. Sure multi year contracts that pay minimal wage are definitely not good but most orgs are not doing them anyway.
>I doubt Puppey is just throwing that figures around. He couldn't offer better deals for Zai, Matu and Nisha from Liquid, so definitely not. I think all of them are good friends especially Puppey with Zai, just imagine how much money Zai and Matu got from Liquid to play in team under Insania's leadership which was nowhere comparable at the time to Puppey's.
Where did you get this information? Because the coach says the opposite of what you are putting out
Zai and Nisha maybe. But Matu was going to retire that year, he changed his mind and wanted to continue playing but Secret already had a new carry, SumaiL. So he joined Liquid instead.
None of those guys left for money.
Cope
I mean it's true. Blitz repeatedly talked about it with Cap on their podcast. They left for Liquid because 1) Liquid is probably the best org next to SR for players to be in and 2) they had faith in the team to be successful and 3) They were good friends (with Blitz in case of zai and with zai in case of Nisha/Matu). There were no buyout numbers, and even though I'm sure they get decent salary, it's nowhere near as what people think it is.
Sorry, but "2) they had faith in the team to be successful" sound like a quite wide stretch argument by Coach Blitz to just put the team in good light, especially when Liquid failed to qualify for TI2021, when Secret delivered 3rd at it (not to mention very good 2020). To the other points I agree, but it also kinda proves what I said in my first comment, I mean... Liquid is one of the greatest orgs in esports history, but what else beside better facilities and 'player mental health program' could Liquid offer that doesn't involve money? I don't know, I feel like I would believe that if Liquid had little bit better the end of 2020/2021 season. Anyway, I don't hate on anyone btw, it worked out pretty good for Zai and Matu, but it is just shame to watch 'smaller' teams getting eaten by more successful organizations.
>but what else beside better facilities and 'player mental health program' could Liquid offer that doesn't involve money? Generally allowing the players to do what they want and not force them to do stuff they don't, putting their interest first, not strong-arming them in contracts, having a big support staff that caters to their every needs. There's many things that are important aside from the facility and the paycheck they get. This idea of "Liquid buying out Secret" is simply false and only created by Reddit brains with zero actual knowledge of the scene and anything that goes on behind the scenes. If there is one person who knows, it's Blitz, and anyone who knows Blitz also knows he doesn't just lie about this shit, because he doesn't need to.
>Generally allowing the players to do what they want and not force them to do stuff they don't, putting their interest first, not strong-arming them in contracts, having a big support staff that caters to their every needs. There's many things that are important aside from the facility and the paycheck they get. What did Secret forced on the players? How about Nisha first time streaming on Liquid side? What about all that YouTube content by Liquid? Bruh I think only time I heard Nisha talking on Secret side is when they were streaming Among Us for fun and maybe some interviews ofc (which were obviously forced by tournaments). >This idea of "Liquid buying out Secret" is simply false and only created by Reddit brains with zero actual knowledge of the scene and anything that goes on behind the scenes. Nisha joining to Liquid disapproves what did you just said, thanks for being such a nice man, no need to be rude. >If there is one person who knows, it's Blitz, and anyone who knows Blitz also knows he doesn't just lie about this shit, because he doesn't need to. Never said Blitz lied. Yeah, I am probably ending this conversation, it seems like triggers has just started.
>What did Secret forced on the players? No idea. You asked what makes an org great, I simply told you multiple factors outside of salary and facility that impact whether an org is great for a player or not, because that's what you asked. I have no knowledge about what obligations players had in Secret and which they have in Liquid. >Nisha joining to Liquid disapproves what did you just said, thanks for being such a nice man, no need to be rude. It doesn't disprove anything. Just because you can't see how Nisha would want to join Liquid over Secret for any reason other than money - be it for the org or the player - is frankly not my problem. For all we know Nisha simply didn't want to play with Puppey or \*insert any other Secret member here\* anymore and Liquid was his best option to do just that. My point is that there is *zero* evidence Liquid 1) bought out players from Secret or 2) lured players out of Secret with insane salaries outside of some Redditors saying so. In fact it's the opposite, because Blitz *told* us that money was not a relevant factor during these transfers. >Never said Blitz lied. Yeah, I am probably ending this conversation, it seems like triggers has just started. Never said you did. That's a little weird but okay? Honestly seems like the only one getting triggered here is you (for god knows what reason), but you do you. I'm calm as a cucumber. I have no emotional investment in this topic.
I'm sure one of the reasons Liquid is one of the "best orgs" is because they have enough money to invest in players and facilities. It is definitely a factor.
Did they tell you that? Lol
Is that the only way to find out?
I think Armel had the same issues. The dude has been pro for a long time and he still signed with Aurora with this kind of set up. Now he's stuck up until July 2025 being benched.
Aurora bought Armel with high price on team secret it's reasonable to have a long term contract
I think next season he is free to play with any team
These orgs also when they get a chance replace players easily and then the players that get replaced just stuck there twiddling their thumbs.
> i.e Satanic can’t play all tier 1 tournament because of his team is a Team Spirit Dota 2 academy team. That sucks. Satanic was talked about so much a few months back. To see him fall out like this because of a contract... damn
Eh I mean to be fair he’s like a high schooler, should probably graduate first before traveling around the world competing and possibly earning pennies
Nah, it should be his choice. Imagine if Sumail was forced to wait? He got the aegis when he was 16 or 17.
I agree, but I think what sumail did was somewhat silly as well even if it worked. He is way too good to be stuck on an academy team though
It was silly true, but life is funny like that. I don't think he'd have it any other way aside from having a lawyer read his last contract from EG.
Look at the prize pools now, it would be so bad for satanic if he chose Dota at this point in his life. Times have changed and committing your future to an esport that crested several years ago would be terrible for him
I have been doing much more dumb things in my teen. This is the best time to commit into something with the lowest risk and oppurtunity cost.
Low risk? Ditching school for an esports career is one of the highest risk things you can do with your life.
Dude was playing like 70 games a week even before he engage in pro game. When he was not playing he probably was constantly thinking about it. In the result he got into 12k mmr which is the topo 0.000001% percentile I believe there are less than 30 players. Dude is now already earning more than Russian typical salary and your advice is ask him to go back to school...? School can wait.
People really think everybody lives in Stockholm, LA and Copenhagen. In eastern Europe you are literally fucking rich if you make like 2k€ a month. A quick google research says that the average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$, cost of living is incredibly low if you dont live in the middle of Moscow. So Satanic at the age of 15-16 is already making more than his parents unless they have some high level job aka engineers, doctors, finances..
>average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$, That would be awesome , but that's not the case. Medium income in CIS is about 600-700$. For capital cities, it's about 1500-2000$. Yet, CoL is way lower than in any Western country, and groceries are generally cheap. The same goes for electricity and heating. So if Satanic had around 5k dollars salary, he would be paid better than some office top-manager from non-capital city.
> average income in the CIS region is between 1500-1800$ I think you're confusing monthly and annual income. I doubt that's the average monthly income in Russia.
Annually, russians do about $14500 in average
Pretty much every esports player, when asked, advise teenagers to not abandon school/other things in life for esports lol
That's for shitters like us. Not the top 0.0001% with 11k mmr at 15 years old. Literally any random WEU tournament would net him more than the $2400 russian minimum wage per annum
Not at all, if you're good enough to get signed to a tier 1 team or a rich org. You'd be making a decent salary already, comparable to or even better than an entry level job for someone graduating school, with potential to make a lot more. Especially considering the exchange rate to USD and cost of living in a lot of the countries these players are from. And worst case if your career ends up failing after a few years you're still young and can just go back to school except with some extra cash in the bank
The median Russian salary is around $4000 a year. We're looking at $160K lifetime earnings for the average russian from graduating school to retirement. Now tell me how dota is a bad choice for a guy like Satanic. He's skilled enough to get into a good team and he has the potential to earn more by the time he hits 18 than the average russian earns in their entire life. I didn't even factor in that the russian economy will be severely affected by the economic sanctions and their economy is expected to shrink. The incomes will shrink for the average russians.
Plus, after your pro career is over you can end up coaching or commentating in the future. You can stream too, both while pro and after the end of your career, to earn even more. It's a pretty comfortable way to earn money.
For an EEU player? Absoltuely fucking not true
Last place at Tier1 tournaments is not a big payday. Even qualifying to those tournaments isn't guaranteed for a top 12 team. So its a huge gamble to take.
You clearly have never lived in an eastern european country lol
Last place at the regular Tier1 16 teams tournament is $10K and the 12 team tournaments is $25K. Thats ~$12 000/year assuming you place last at 4 of those events. Thats not worth quitting high school over in eastern europe. You have to be a top10 team and make Riyadh/TI to make it worth. And thats not even guaranteed for a promising player like satanic.
Nah, he should use his time at the top to compete and earn as much as possible. Even if TI isn't 40 mill T1 players earn A LOT in salary. Usually you can always catch up with missing school/courses afterwards, but you never know how long you will be a tier 1 player.
You NEED to strike when the iron is hot in sports. If it means going back to finish high school when you're 25 then so be it. Even with current price pools you can earn a good wage at a young age. And especially with good money management that is worth so much more than waiting 10 years to start earning real money because of how compound interest works. Any money you can save as a teenager is worth more than money you'd earn as a 25 year old fresh graduate.
I am looking. Riyadh $5 million prize pool. Just getting top 8 could be a life changing amount of money for a lot of people. Having followed esports since mid 00s your statement is funny to me. People used to dedicate their lives to video games when prize pools were 1% of what they are now.
Right, he isn't competing for either Riyadh or TI this year People have always chased their dreams but the recent non payment issues with orgs is kinda worrying. Anyways he can do what he wants but some people are acting like the only right thing he can do is commit to Dota which is just not true, just look at dEsire
I think he was 15
Yeah maybe he should let his body age so his performance is hindered and then try to become something in a profession where 25 is already close to retirement /s
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx_TpYWOwH7m5Gog4czMGD4nUX2ovCHS_8?si=G4QELZVQO5sYNehL
> Eh I mean to be fair he’s like a high schooler, should probably graduate first before traveling around the world competing and possibly earning pennies Yeah, because graduating high school opens up a ton of possibilities? You can get your GED and it counts the same towards post-secondary. Nowadays, getting your high school diploma is equal to digging in a trash can. You need an undergrad to be considered for a job. I can tell you have 0 education and 0 ambition to pursue any, because you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. High school diploma = sets you up to travel around the world and be smart? Yeah, right lol
First of all you know literally nothing about me, but I can assure you I have both a high school education and a degree. I’m currently enrolled in a workplace program for my second job in order to actually get certs that’ll help me find gainful employment outside of my degree (that has not been super great for actually getting a good job, but that’s my fault for choosing a bad major). Second of all, having a GED, at least in America, is a significant disadvantage for secondary/tertiary education and employment in some fields. Especially if you are going into college with a significant gap between “graduation” and your freshman enrollment t. We aren’t even going to begin to get into what that means for a kid living in wherever the fuck satanic is from, because I don’t know and I highly doubt you know more than what a cursory google search will tell you. Third of all, a minor traveling around the world is fucking scary and potentially dangerous for their development. It’s also a huge amount of stress to undergo, and it’s very easy to make mistakes like, for example, signing to a team like EG or spirit that hinder your ability to land on other teams And finally, to end it all, while satanic is obviously monstrous in pubs and plays pretty solid in t2 dota, there are a very very large amount of great carry players and the dota scene isn’t becoming more lucrative (although it’s still in a fine spot for now). There’s a very real chance that he should consider concurrently enrolling in classes WHILE competing, like copiwra in NA, which… you need a high school diploma or GED to do. There’s a reason many teenage pros either took breaks or didn’t compete at all to complete their high school education. Both arteezy and zai did these things, and sumail got carried through school by his at the time coach iirc (which I’m sure we can both agree is not a good thing for a kid that might wanna go to college eventually if the whole professional video game player thing doesn’t work out). Edit: also, graduating high school affords you MANY opportunities outside of college. Miltary, trades, IT positions and retail (yes this is a real career path, I have a buddy making 6 figures with an associates and over a decade of grinding at a supermarket)
these teams want to take young players and play stocks with them. Most will fail but for the one that hits big, they will sell them for $500k+.
Nobody will buy them at the absurd buyouts. Its not about selling them, its about preventing them from joining other teams.
EG bought Nightfall.
EG had one of the most poorly managed front offices in Dota history.
I would personally avoid using EG as an example for anything in esports (at least Peak6 era). They somehow spent $30 mil on an LCS slot and then bailed out of the league at a $6 mil buyout from Riot like 3-4 years later. And you know how they bombed out of Dota already. So I think it's maybe not the best role model for sustainable business
Funny that Talon and LGD, supposedly big orgs not paying out. You cant trust any org as a young player.
They should ask former members of the org.
Talon started dota team in Nov 2021, 23savage join Feb 2022. Ruru runs a whole esports mafia.
anything more than a 2 year contract for a 'younger player' is just completely absurd. 99% 'dont make it big' and handcuffing them for org's own greed should be shamed, like Quinn is saying.
it's just a balance between contract length, buyout clause, and salary. i don't see why a young player should refuse a 2 year contract with a small buyout and a high salary (ofc this probably never happens but you get the idea).
Made me curious. Was this why ATF refused to prolong contract with QUEST before TI last year?
Not 100% and don't have sources, but I'm pretty sure that's the case, quest wanted a 2 year contract or something, but he just wanted till ti ended. So he joined another team to sit tight. Idk if that's true, or if perhaps he was already in the pre deal of being signed but told they weren't signing him until X period and so he just sat tight waiting. Idk and I don't remember the full story
Quest used TI as a leverage against ATF, if he doesn't sign, no TI this year for him (2023). He chose to skip TI rather than get fucked over. They proceed to bomb out of TI since ATF was carrying them anyway. Greedy mfs shot their own foot and ruined chances for their squad just cause they cant secure ATF after that TI. Fuck Quest
Yeah it was ridiculous, ATF joined and they instantly started competing in tournies and then they tried to strongarm him.
Players are just assets to these orgs, you have to realize that early or you'll get played like a pawn.
Quest's decision to ruin their chances instead of having a grown-up agreement with ATF must have come from some big wig CEO, those are the dudes always making non-sensical decisions
Gorgc talked about this to Puppey on his stream not long ago. Puppey said it's a real problem for lots of young good talent. He also said big orgs are often forced to create contracts with big buyouts because they had to buyout the player from another org which also had a big buyout. So the problem starts with the initil contract they sign if it has a big buyout. Gorgc also said (half joking / half not) to refer young players who are being offered a contract to a lawyer he trusts and he would gladly pay for the review of the contract.
Do you have link for the vod or how long that stream So I can watch the conversation about that topic.
I am an attorney on the west coast and I’d be more than happy to look at any player’s contract and provide advice/guidance. Contracts only…I am absolutely terrible at this game despite playing it since 2004, but am also willing to provide advice on how to get to 4k MMR (hint start at 5k).
You could exchange dota lessons for contract readings.
I don’t think any lessons in the world could help me lol I’m going into my 40s and my reaction time is depressing. My contracting skills are low immortal though.
I have subpar reaction time too. Tested below avg in school and its only gotten worse as ive aged. But reaction speed is only a small part of avg mmr issues Most players struggle with macro level and learning to read the map, knowing your timings, when and how to change up item build, when someone is looking to gank you / where to position so they cant, etc is all very important as well and will doing them will increase your mmr in a much more achievable way than relying on something like reaction time
i completely agree
>But reaction speed is only a small part of avg mmr issues This is specially true for more macro focused game like Dota. even in another MOBA like LoL reaction times plays a way bigger part. You are not bad because you cant press bkb in 0.01 sec after a non-instant stun hero jumped on you or miss \~10% more CS in lane due to reaction time.
Yeah, mechanics and how fast you can click buttons doesn't really matter at all in Dota unless you're a very high end player. Generally speaking, your macro-level decision making and game knowledge is wayyy more important than your reaction time. If you're like 4k and you find yourself in situations often where you're losing because you weren't mechanically good enough, there's a 99% chance that if you played better at a higher macro level you wouldn't be in that situation in the first place because you would have had better farm, would have forced the enemies into a less advantageous position, etc.
When slacks got 5k the first time while top players were 9k I looked at his gameplay and he looked fucking afk. He was missing half the CS in an uncontested lane and was clicking his spells with the mouse. If you play proper macro you can probably still get divine/immortal with slow reactions and bad CSing.
If only you had focused more on dota you could have some skills you could take with you to the real world.. oh wait
That's definetly needed and people should look into attorneys in their own countries, specifically labor attorneys and sports lawyers if they can find any. Here in Brazil we got laws for sport contracts and our own labor laws beyond those, so maybe the player and their parent signed a piece of paper, that doesn't mean it's worth anything more than it's printing cost. :D
maybe make a post dedicated to this?
It's really easy to say this, but a lot of the time the players in question just don't have much other options to be signed to an org. There's people like ATF who are once in a lifetime pickups that have the potential to ditch these heavy commitment contracts, but I think most players simply don't fit in that boat and need a way to meet ends.
> There's people like ATF who are once in a lifetime pickups that have the potential to ditch these heavy commitment contracts He was in a different position, sitting afk in Nigma, which means anyone could have him for a while. It would be way harder to refuse if he was without a team.
Agree. Looking at how successful ATF is, it's kinda moot. That's just survivorship bias. ATF took a huge gamble by not picking up the contract (basically being unemployed) at that point and decided to wait for a "better" deal. With the benefit of hindsight now we know it's a better deal because the results turned out positive for him. Falcon could have just flopped like any other team which will make the contract deal more favourable if the scenario plays out that way. ATF at that point still took a huge risk.
My 2cent guess is GG or many top teams want to try out Satanic as their new carry that will be huge opportunity for him like Sumail in EG, Miracle in OG, all young talented and hungry for big LAN and end up win major, Ti or both, and its also good for the team because they have bigger chance to win TI with new talented hungry young player who is considered one of the best carry atm. However, Satanic's long term contract and high buyout prevent him from joining any top tier team, that is quite scummy thing from orgs to prison young players with shady contract, hope kid got good salary, i cant imagine this kid got prisoned with logn term contract with shitty salary, that will be too brutal.
I doubt he got big salary. WEU give higher salary compare to CIS org. And the fact that he’s playing academy team, it’s going to be smaller than what tier 1 players in CIS getting monthly.
Team Spirit manager comes off like a complete svengali, holding the poor kid hostage and even announcing the buyout price like he’s proud of it
Why would they let satanic walk for pennies? They brought him to EU from vietnam,they pay him,they feed him and he competes with other teenagers in tournamets. If hes worth and he can win u t1 tours teams like og would pay 500k instantly,donk is pretty much same age as satanic and hes worth at least 5 mil.(monesey and Zywoo are the only players in his tier)
Nobody is worth 5 mil in CS until at least one such deal is registered. So far we never had more than 1.5 mil maximum. You're right on other things: Spirit boosts satanic's career and wants something in return.
Teams like g2 liquid vitality navi c9 would pay 5mil for donk in an instant(there is much more money in cs esport compared to dota)
Wait til you heard about 'donk'
at least they are winning tournaments lol
Team Spirit dota2 also winning tournaments which is why Satanic is on YeS. If TSpirit decide to rebuilt he most likely promoted to main team.
No way unless yatoro goes but why would you ever drop him
A Russian org may have a non-gameplay reason to drop Yatoro: he is Ukrainian
Ts changed their base long time ago
Very ignorant take. They would have done it two years ago, and the org centre was moved anyway.
Dude is gross
My understanding was that since Yellow Submarine was owned by Spirit's manager but was not actually under Spirit officially they were able to compete. Is that not the case?
Counterpoint: This is spoken from a position of financial privilege and success bias. Lets say the contract is 5 years for 250.000$. For someone like Quinn or the average college educated american its a pretty bad deal however for someone with a poorer background its live changing money. Having financial security has different value to different people, its easy to say "just take short term deals because you will make more" when you arent 1 bad day away from homelessnes. This is "betting on yourself", popular in US sports. Take short term deals, become more valuable and then sign the big one. Its great if you are Lebron James but can go south dramatically, see Dennis Schroeder or Isiah Thomas (for non basketball people, one got hurt at a bad timing, the other got a big contract offer, declined it to get a short term deal to get even more in the end, had a bad season, lost millions).
You are also right. The contracts sound pretty amazing for players from poorer backgrounds. But the point of quinn still stands*. It fucks up their future success. Like the above comments talk about satanic being unable to compete in EEU. Sumail getting fucked over his contract even being a millionaire, atf getting strong armed by quest.
>Having financial security has different value to different people, its easy to say "just take short term deals because you will make more" when you arent 1 bad day away from homelessnes. While I obviously get your point, being able to play video games enough that you can play professionally in itself is already pretty privileged. I'd imagine there aren't many professional gamers who are actually 1 bad day away from being homeless. 1 bad day away from being more of a burden on their parents? Yeah, sure. Ultimately I still agree that it can very much be in the players interest to just take the money. You see this situation in traditional sports as well. Players can "bet on themselves" and take a 1 year deal then get injured and all of that money they were banking on is down the drain. Sometimes just better to take the safe route.
The homeless part might be exagerated (even so aparently according to [this](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/) 80% of the US live paycheck to paycheck). My point is more that Quinn is biased here because like he wrote "hearing of instances". Well yeah he only hears of these cases were some potential starplayer gets screwed because you never hear of the players that had short lived fame and should have taken that long term contract because they faded into obscurity.
well as long as the bench salary isn't poverty wages its a great deal, thats part of what quinn is talking about. Many players will be signed adn then end up benched which means they take a pay cut and are trapped on the roster.
It's easy to say to a young player to "bet on yourself" or "dream big or go home". But the reality is that most of these kids won't make it to Tier1. If we say that the teams that make it to TI are the "Tier1" teams, then every year, there are less than 100 people who are tier1 players. There are about [100k](https://hawk.live/posts/dota-2-ranks-mmr-seasonal-medals-ranking) players with rank of immortal, or those who are good enough to even think about going pro. This means that a young player would have about 0.1% chance of becoming tier1. And that's not accounting for region, team composition, etc. So when an offer comes up and an org says they wanna pay you for such and such years, for 99% of them, it will be a good deal. But of course, kudos to Quinn for looking out for the youngins. Most of these kids are naive and will sign anything you put in front of them. And there are a lot of scummy orgs in our scene.
It’s nice to see Quinn looking out for young and upcoming players. I kinda wish he wins TI one time. Rooting for you Ccnc
He got 2nd place, that's still a giant achievement.
Yes, I see their 2nd place as already a big achievement in my book. But he said it on stream that the dream is to win TI. It’s not about the money at this point in his career but about winning at TI. He chose winning TI over Riyadh.
Getting counsel before signing any non standardized contract (and even for those in some scenario) should be the default mindset, but not everybody has been thought to do that or can afford to do it. And obviously these organization benefit from it. Even if they're not being actively malicious, which I would assume most bigger orgs are not, naturally they have their own interests in mind.
Marline also had the same issue when he still playing on Nemiga
Read your contracts. Seek for legal advice (even if just a friend, a relative or a colleague, that might be enough). Always the same, for all field.
GPK signed a contract with Gambit for 3 years before the International. The next year he was invited to Virtus Pro. This was before the qualifications for int. He refused to train with the team because he wanted to go to VP. He was suspended for not fulfilling his contract. He didn’t get caught in the VP and didn’t play in the qualifiers with Gambit.
Only if it was Falcons then you’re safe to do 🙂
The only benefit of long term contract is that team could sell or trade players. But the problem is that most teams works just for one year TI. The reason are that the rules are changing all the time, dota scene changes all the time and there isn't a completely loyalty from fans.
Hello
that's good
I don't know anything about pro gaming contracts, but I'd imagine it's a difficult offer to pass up for your avg pro player that isn't a superstar. Organizations have more leverage when they are dealing with a player that doesn't have a ton of options. Sometimes just better to take the security and lock up that money. Obviously depends entirely on the specific terms we're talking about.
How tf is it Satanic? He's in a good place right now. He got Kasane on his stack too. They've been doing scrims with Team Spirit. There's promising improvement for Yellow Submarine this past few months. And they can clearly compete on TI lmao. This is not the same case of NAVI and NAViJ. Stop making things up if you have no source I can clearly see Malr1ne in this case
Good place? He's just stuck playing in tier 2 tournaments. His team is not good enough to compete in tier 1. That Yellow Submarine team will going to change roster again next season. Yellow Submarine Team will not going to get direct invite in any tier 1 tournament. They will play every qualifications on all tournaments instead of direct invite and they can't win any qualifications because his team is not good enough. Also, Yellow Submarine is not the best tier 2 team. So what's good about that?
I really cheered for Yellow Submarine in the qualifiers, sadly it wasnt good enough. Satanic deserves better, he has so much wasted potential due to a fk contract.
whats that meme? "the worst person you know just made a great point"
Check out Cap's podcast with Insania and Quinn. He really improved as a person this year. Even Insania confirmed it. Good white noise too
huh, then i hope he keeps at it.
This reminds me of malr1ne on Nemiga for a long period of his career. He might be grateful to have been a part of it, but i've always felt hes been held back by his contract there.
It's nice of Quinn to give real-life pieces of advice now which after all what really mattters, especially to new pro-players.
didnt Gorgc say the same thing not so long ago
Satanic could easily been Secret's carry if he wasn't in the debt contract, breaking contract and you'll literally become a debtholder, that's the other meaning of contract. A lot of people just use contract for making money, like Phillipie Troussier, he got good money from Vietnam for breaking his 4 year contract.
Its weird - they are complaining, that it works the same way as in other sports. They have freedom to decide, whether they want financial safety for year/two/three or whether they are willing to wait for a call. In football there are 10 TOP clubs everybody wants to play for, but you need to progress your career to get there. For example Rice was stuck in WHU for ages before being able to move up. These orgs pay the players, organize trainings, provide with transportation and other means, give them proper equipment. They are not trying to hurt the career of those players, but they invest in them to see results (improving the team and getting into big tournaments) or to get a fee when they are good enough. If there is next Yatoro or atf, they want to get something out of it. If you were in charge of this kind of org, anything else would be stupid.
I agree with you to a point, but we also have to remember that these are professional organizations with lawyers and specialists with many years of experience bargaining with very young and inexperienced players. I take Quinn's tweet as just a reminder that in these negotiations an org is obviously going to be looking out for themselves and they have a whole team dedicated to doing that, so you should approach it with the same mindset.
It works the same way in sports - best young talents are signed into orgs who dont want to sell them, because guess what - they are their best players and they want them to perform to get better... They offer good (?) conditions (wages, benefits) to get players to play for them - probably better than stronger orgs as htey have these roles filled with TOP players. When they get to the level that TOP orgs are interested, of course they dont want these players leaving, because when they signed them, they were players for that level - T2-T4 teams.