Panda Global CFO: I had not considered acquiring the Team Blaze roster until they approached us.

The latest in the shuffle comes at the hands of Panda Global obtaining the Team Blaze roster IN BETWEEN back to back qualifiers for the first Summer Regional. We talked to both sides about what happened.

As a Heroes community, we’ve all become accustomed to roster changes during major qualifiers. ‘Roster swaps’, ‘Roster Rollercoaster’, ‘Rosterpocolypse’, whatever you choose to call it, we know it happens all too regularly.

The latest in the shuffle comes at the hands of Panda Global obtaining the Team Blaze roster in the middle of back to back qualifiers for the first Summer Regional. Mere hours after the second qualifier on Saturday Panda Global registered for the third qualifier on Sunday with a completely new roster which consisted of four of the regular Team Blaze members, and one regular PG member, psalm.

With such a fast transition from two well-known organizations, the questions and allegations arise as to how/why this happened. We can see from social media that tensions were high after the transition:
Panda Global had been playing the previous two qualifiers with insomnia, yoda, scytez, Srey and scylol, but failed to qualify for regionals.

We reached out to both Panda Global and Team Blaze about the transition and what exactly happened after the second qualifier.

One side

Panda eSports CFO, David Wu:

The only players we considered "permanent" on the roster were psalm and Yoda. The rest of the players were on trial and some were only offered short-term contracts through Dreamhack Austin whether they qualified for regionals or not. I had not considered acquiring the Team Blaze roster until they approached us Saturday night.

Around 7 p.m. EST after our team failed to qualify, psalm informed me that Team Blaze asked him to leave PG and play with Blaze for the third qualifier. He rejected their offer as he wanted to stay with Panda Global. So the Blaze players held a meeting with their CEO, Shadowsmile, and immediately afterward he met with PG management. The details of that conversation were private, but we can confirm that the Blaze management wanted PG to "rent" their players for Dreamhack and return to Blaze when the event was over. After the meeting, we were planning on rejecting every offer that was proposed and going into the third qualifier with our original roster. Later that night, the players of Team Blaze asked to meet with PG Management and discuss the possibility of joining Panda Global. Following that conversation, the players deliberated on their own and later on asked to join PG
It’s confirmed that none of the Team Blaze players were contracted with the Team Blaze organization. They came to PG asking to join our roster as individuals with no association with Blaze. We think it's unfortunate that the word "poached" is being used here but we feel for the Blaze manager's frustrations when negotiations did not reach a mutually satisfying conclusion.

We didn't give them any specific offer or use any numbers to entice them. I'm sure they all have their own reasons for joining PG, and I don't want to put words in their mouths, but personally I feel they wanted to join our organization because of our reputation, our message, and the desire to qualify for Dreamhack Austin with psalm.”

The other side

Team Blaze CEO and Manager Patrick “ShadowSmile” Smiley:

The players like many other top teams felt very unconfident in the new patch. A set of fear was felt if they don't qualify. They want to be the best team but are afraid to lose and lose momentum so Yuuj was swapping players in and out without cause or premise other than they didn't qualify. Play in a lot of the core players was lacking and was felt throughout the team. They [Blaze players] wanted psalm, but he was under contract. ”

Along with the Team Blaze organization, the old Panda Global roster seemed to have been blindsided by this change.
After this major change, the four old PG players stayed together, along with former Tempo Storm player, Srey, and formed “A Mashed Potato Volcano” and competed in the third qualifier but lost 2-0 to 2ARC Gaming.
The new Panda Global roster consists of psalm, bkid, kladeous, Yuuj, and Jason.

They are now qualified for the first Summer Regional alongside Naventic, Tempo Storm, THC, GaleForce, Cloud9, COGnitive, and Gust or Bust

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