Naniwa released from Alliance following events at IEM Katowice

Photo: ESL

Following his forfeiture of IEM World Championship, Johan "Naniwa" Lucchesi states in a post that he's no longer part of Alliance, the team that has been his home since April last year.

The Swedish Protoss sparked controversy on March 14th during the first day of IEM World Championship, the $100,000 winner-takes all crown event of the premier circuit. Although he had expressed his disinterest in playing StarCraft 2 and his diminished motivation to compete, Lucchesi was slated to participate in the tournament nonetheless and face two-times WCS America champion Polt in the first round.

A scouted proxy gateway attempt in game one led to a "so fun to play without soundproofing" retort from the Swede, which was followed by a forfeiture of the entire series and boos from the crowd.

Today, Naniwa shed more light on the result of his actions. In a TL post, Lucchesi says that "ironically enough [he] got kicked out of the team for going there and doing what [he] did when [he] didnt even wanna go or play sc2 in the first place".

Official statement from Alliance's management is still missing, while Naniwa's full statement can be read below:

"[sic] everything that happened was extremly silly, to be honest i told my team atleast 5 times that i didnt want to go and that they should make iem get a replacement for me. but my team didnt agree with this and also IEM said that they would highly recommend me to go or there would be consequenses ( this is what my team told me )

i would ofcourse not want to go to waste my time playing a tournament in a game i dont even practice anymore as it was a huge waste of time but as i said i was forced to because of SPONSOR Things, and ironically enough i got kicked out of the team for going there and doing what i did when i didnt even wanna go or play sc2 in the first place funnily enough. but whatever im not sad and i dont really care anymore about that, im sure that if i practice 2 weeks in the future i can make the comeback as the best foreign player at any time if i feel like it.

its a bit funny tho that ppl think other people deserve the spot ( Yes i wanted to give it away cuz i didnt wanna play the tour ) but i won it fair and square by going top2 at newyork, if other people wouldve "deserved it" then they could learn to qualify to tournaments by their own skill".

Naniwa joined Alliance in April last year after a seven month stint with Quantic Gaming alongside fellow countryman SortOf. [A] was Naniwa's ninth team since his career began in 2010 as the Swede also has records with the rosters of mTw, MYM, Empire, Dignitas and Complexity, among others.

Author

Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev