Adrian 'FATA-' Trinks announces that he will not only be leaving his Liquid teammates, but he will be taking a break from competitive Dota entirely.
Less than 24 hours have passed since Team Liquid announced the departure of support player Jesse 'JerAx' Vainikka, yet the team hit Liquid fans with another bombshell today as mid player Adrian 'FATA-' Trinks announced his departure. The all-star mid player took to his Twitter earlier today to let his fans know that he would be streaming live on his Twitch channel and gave a hint toward discussing some roster changes, but that tweet has since been deleted. In its place FATA- posted a full length tweet discussing his decision to leave the team and the competitive scene for an indeterminate amount of time.
In his farewell he discusses the stress associated with frequent travel, the risks he is taking by leaving Liquid, and how he hopes this break will motivate him to come back to the scene an even stronger player than he is now. He also takes some time to thank his teammates for the experience he was given by playing with them and mentions how much they had grown as a team since they had first formed. He makes it very clear that he is taking a break of his own volition and desire to find the game fun again and not due to any internal team drama.
FATA- first joined the competitive scene in 2012 under the team We haz Asian and has since made a name for himself as a prolific and versatile mid player under such teams as Mousesports, Sigma, Cloud9 and, of course, Team Liquid. The first time FATA- attended an International was in 2013 for under the team Mousesports and he has not missed a TI since. In recent years the spotlight has started to move in his direction as fans and casters alike began to notice his wide hero pool and ability to adapt to most gameplay situations and fight from behind. Every time FATA- would join a new team he seemed to have adapted a new hero pool to fit that teams play style and it is something that makes him stand out in the realm of mid players. While he was a member of TI3 Mousesports he was very akin to Puck, whereas on Team Dog he showed Troll Warlord a decent amount of favoritism. This type of adaptive playstyle is certainly one of his defining characteristics as a mid player and it comes as quite a shock that he has chosen to leave the scene entirely right as he achieves the critical acclaim he has so long deserved.
Though he may have stepped out of competitive Dota 2 his farewell does give some positive reassurance to fans that he may be back in the scene soon enough, and in the meantime he mentioned that he will continue to stream so fans will not be totally in the dark. For now though, it is a sad day to be a Team Liquid fan.
