Infamous just went down to two players overnight, losing not only the rights to continue in DAC qualifiers but also the chance for an invite for the Kiev Major regionals, as did Not Today who seem to have recruited two of the ex-Infamous players.
Dota 2 Asia Championships 2017 tournament admin Andrey Grygoriev broke the news about Infamous last night on Twitter, announcing the team had been disqualified due to roster changes. Two of the Infamous players left the organization without notice, joining Not Today. According to Andrey Grygoriev and Infamous CEO, Joe Ccasani Plasencia, Steven 'StingeR' Vargas and Alonso 'Kotar?' Lion will join Not Today while Thomas 'Valquiria' Jaulis Romero’s future is uncertain.
Considering Infamous’ more-than decent run at the recent WESG tournament in China and also taking into consideration the Kiev Major qualifiers that are just around the corner, the news came as a shock. The Sunday evening shuffle will affect both Infamous and Not Today, who basically blew out their chances for an invite to the regional qualifiers at the upcoming Major, a rather awkward situation, given the fact that they are the strongest Peruvian representatives in Dota right now.
Intrigued by their decision, we reached out to both parties to understand what happened with the Infamous players on Sunday night.
they feel that only with the Not Today roster they will be able to qualify for the Major
First to answer our call was Infamous Gaming CEO Joe Ccasani Plasencia, who told GosuGamers that StingeR told him on Sunday night, before their game against SG e-sports, that he “would go along with Kotaro to play for No Today and that they would only play the Kiev Major with them“. The two players justified their decision to the Infamous CEO by saying that “they feel that only with the Not Today roster they will be able to qualify for said Major, even if it has to be from open brackets“.
Looking at the Not Today roster at this moment, Kotaro and StingeR’s decision is to some extent understandable as they will reunite with their old teammate Alexis 'Greedy' Ventura, but at the same time it’s rather intriguing as Infamous decided as a team to kick their offlaner, Renato 'Kingteka' Garcia, (who plays now for Not Today ) based on a lack of synergy between him and the rest of the team. So, with Not Today not confirming any changes to their roster up until now, we reached out to their CEO and team manager Luis "Megaciber" Ramos and asked him first of all to confirm all the shuffle rumors, which he partially did. However, both StingeR and Kotaro are not yet considered Not Today members as the organization is not ready to officially announce something before contracts are signed. According to the Not Today manager we should expect an official announcement coming out this weekend.
we never imagined something like this would happen
Now, player contracts is a much discussed topic in the Dota 2 community and is a main reason for a lot of the shuffles we witness on so many other occasions, regardless of the region. The Infamous CEO , Joe Ccasani Plasencia told us that “all the five players were paid their salaries all the time. He also added, “we all live in the same house for a long time now, and they gave me no signs of unhappiness, we never imagined something like this would happen. We are in the process of renewing their contracts, and while the papers do take a while to be done, we had a verbal agreement to stay together until after the Major.”
It seems that the renewal window is exactly what made Kotaro and StingeR reconsider their position with Infamous. We asked Not Today’s manager to clarify who approached who and when did it happen. “Kotaro and Stinger quit the Infamous team by their own will, besides they said they didn’t have a contract with the organization” he said.
we are worried about their emotinal state because they feel like they have the responsibility for the Latin-American slot
Regarding their position with Not Today, Luis "Megaciber" Ramos mentioned that “the process of joining Not Today is currently happening, at the moment we are worried about their emotional state because they feel like they have the responsibility for the Latin-American slot. Meaning, right now there are only three big teams registered for the Kiev Major: Infamous, Not Today and SG Esports. Then we have a lot of other smaller and unstable teams in the South American region, what happens with them if both Infamous and Not Today will have to go via open qualifiers, we do think on these aspects as well, and that’s why SingeR and Kotaro are aware of their huge reasonability taken when they decided to leave Infamous.”
Regardless of how long this process of acclimatizing them to Not Today and getting them ready to compete will take, one thing is certain, the damage is done and most likely we will see both teams fighting for a Kiev Major spot from the South American open qualifiers. So, with that in mind, we asked both teams how confident they are competing in the open qualifiers.
Luis 'Megaciber' Ramos, Manager and CEO of Not Today:
Joe Ccasani Plasencia, Manager and CEO of Infamous:
We will play the open qualifiers and we will do our best to teach them that consistency and dedication can beat talent.”
With that being said, we wish the best of luck to both teams in their efforts to rebuild and prepare for the Kiev Major qualifiers and we are extremely grateful to Esteban'AKAWonder' Serrano, the SK Gaming Hearthstone player who was kind enough to help us with the translation.
