My story with Tainted Minds and Riot OCE

I’m going to write what really happened here, no point in linking screenshots, if Tainted Minds had anything to refute about the various articles published they would’ve done it, but they know they are in the wrong.



I arrived december 4th, because we had tryouts to do for mid and top. We were told by Tainted Minds that the house is going to

would be ready before we arrived, and even got a confirmation a few days before.

We arrive;

- no computers

- 500 ping internet, unable to watch any streams or vods

- 50 $ ikea chairs (we were promised gaming chairs afterwards but they never came)

- house is really dirty, walking barefoot in the house makes your feet go black

- no working AC

- only 1 working shower, took a month and a half to fix the second shower.

- Fas and Nick rooms didn’t have doors, Fas finally got one after about 2 months, and Nick never got his

- no laundry machine, Fas used to go do our laundry, but after she stopped getting paid, we had no way of doing it. We finally got a washer/dryer machine who worked on 4 hours and 8 hours cycles, but only after 2 months.



We were told that internet would be ready within 2-3 days and the computers in a few days.

We had to practice 2 weeks in a net café. After 2 weeks we finally received our computers, they were nowhere near the quality that we were promised in our contracts. We were supposed to have 4500$ computers that would allow us to stream and received sub 2000$ ish used towers. We had to reformat one for it to actually work. We only received 5 PCs even though our coach and manager were each promised one, which they never got. It made work a lot more difficult for everyone.



Around the third week of January we started having incredibly bad packet loss, it was pretty much impossible to scrim or even play solo queue properly. I played about 1 game a day just to realize how hard it was to play on that internet (it is quite unfortunate that Tainted Minds did not provide a second internet line like they were asked to. When they finally got one,

during week 3, it was run by the same provider, so it had the exact same packet loss problem). I'm used to play around 12 to 14 games a day, and now i can’t play the game at all. On top of that we had no groceries for a good 10 days, since Fas stopped getting paid for her work we had no one to do it, we were asked to do online delivery, but it took forever to set that up, sometimes it would take up to 4 days for anyone of the 4 or 5 Tainted Minds people to answer a basic question.



AC came January 18th, worked fine, until we started having numerous power outages every day, which would make the AC go off and put us back with the same problem. Using the toaster or the washer/dryer at the same time as the AC would make the power go out.



We dealt with it at first because we understood a gaming house was a new experience in OCE, we were aware there might be small issues, but expected the organization to be proactive and looking for solutions. The part that bothered me is that every single one of the issues we had could’ve been prevented if Tainted Minds listened to Nick and Fas, who were literally telling them what was happening and how it could be fixed. Every times we tried to communicate with the organization, be it through Fas, Nick, or any Tainted Minds employee, it felt like talking to a brick wall. They kept promising us things would get fixed and gave us deadlines, which they NEVER respected. Situation never improved and problems would never get fixed.



In early January, Nick gets in contact with Riot to ask for help on all the issues that were mentioned. I then email them about all the issues, and they finally agreed to have a mediation meeting, which was supposed to happen before the split starts so we could put this behind and focus on the game 100%. It got delayed until week 3 of OPL. Chris Schubert was supposed to be handling our case, but since he is a friend with Fas, he did not touch the case to not be in conflict of interest.



The thing that surprised me is that Daniel Ringland, the guy who handled it, is the guy that convinced John Mcrae (Tainted Minds investor) to invest into Opl. John even runs a high school league in New-Zealand in collaboration with Riot Games. This explains why Riot kept delaying the mediation meeting, so that John could try and fix stuff and look better in the eyes of Riot at the meeting. That is only one of the many examples of Ringland being biased towards Tainted Minds. I am not allowed to say anything that was said in the mediation meeting as it was under Riot NDA, but the fact that we left less than a week after shows how irrelevant it might have been. A few days after the mediation, we went back to Riot studios to have a friendly talk with Daniel Ringland. We told him issues haven’t been fixed, and that things did not change at all after the mediation. We asked Daniel Ringland what would happen if we did not play week 4, he pretty much only said to reach for legal advice, and that we would be able to go from there. I remember telling him that i have no intentions on representing Tainted Minds as an organization, and that they shouldn't be allowed to compete in OPL. Pretty much got told in a nice way that it didnt matter what i thought. Tainted Minds were there to stay. He even told us to think of the fans when we were saying we wanted to

leave, which meant he clearly did not understand anything we've been going through, and values what the audience cares more than the hapiness of his players. We later found out that Ringland most likely told John about our intentions of leaving, since Tainted Minds started looking for replacement players before anyone knew we were going to leave.



We finally decide to play week 4, knew it was over so decided to enjoy playing together as it would probably be the last time we play with each other ever again. The day after, we send our legal termination of contract and leave the house. Tainted Minds release a statement 4 days later, much more considered of a joke to be honest, about how they would not release

us from the database, and didn't believe our contracts were terminated. If you do not agree that my contract is terminated, sue me and i will gladly defend myself to court, but if you do not sue me, my contract is indeed TERMINATED. The issue is that Tainted Minds don't have to do anything to keep us in contract prison, since Riot is staying inactive and doesn't

consider our contracts void, because they say they have no legal power. If my contract is terminated and you don't make the step forward to prove it was not, it is legally terminated.



When we left the house, here is the list of the main issues that were still ongoing after 3 months

- packet loss making league unplayable, 3 weeks straight of not scrimming and playing solo queue

- computers kept crashing, even though qualified as high-end budget by a Tainted Minds employee.

- AC not working because of power outages, the heat wave we got hit by was really fun

- Power outages

- Washer/dryer issue because of power outages

- only 1 garbage bin for 7 players, asked for more since the beginning because rubbish was building up in the house

- our manager got terminated and we did not get a new one, they still owe her money to this day. She stayed 2 months with a

COMPLETELY breached contract trying to help us out without getting payed.

- our coach terminated his contract, Tainted Minds at first agreed that his contract was void, then retracted themselves. We

did not have a coach provided after that.

- i asked for my buyout and did not receive an amount in over 30 days of written notice



My invoice from the month of December still has not been paid, as well as week 3-4 of OPL. Only those payments issues should be enough to kick a team out of the league, which from my understanding is what happened to TIP in NA. TIP acquired Riot approval to sell their spot without paying any fine to compensate for the players not being paid, which worries me a little

bit.



We have been trying to solve the issue privately, but Tainted Minds are taking their time to answer every communication to waste our time. Riot offered to do arbitration with a third party involved, which would have lower costs than court, but Tainted Minds refused, even though we were ready to pay money out of our own pocket to resolve this issue., which shows how

little they care about resolving the issue, they only want to cash out on our backs, when we already paid the prize enough for this fiesta. Riot suggested us to go for legal advice, which we did, then said they had no legal power, which pretty much gives all the power to the organization.



During the week Tainted Minds played Abyss, Tainted Minds had 13 players listed in the riot database, which is illegal, under rule 3.2 of the OPL rules, the maximum amount of players listed is 10. When we informed riot by email, they edited the database by removing some players, and did not update the date of last modification, trying to trick us into thinking it was

like this before, but we had screenshots. Whoever did this should get fired immediately, its completely dishonest and against Riot's own rules. It was clearly done so Tainted Minds would avoid having to release us from the database



I am still owed my full payment for week 3-4 of OPL which breaks my contracts, organization have 14 days after receiving Riot's money to pay their players, and i have not been paid. Right now the organization is trying to tell Riot that the reason we haven't been paid is because we did not invoice them our salary (??), and that we need a correct ABN number like

they previously (?) mentioned. I did not even know what an ABN number was when they told us, but apparently they previously mentionned it to me several times before! Even if i invoiced them the week 3 and 4 of OPL, who tells me they will actually pay, they are 3 months late on my December's invoice.



I am sorry, but if you are a rioter telling me that this is an acceptable situation for a professional organization playing in your league 3 months after moving to their house, you are either an idiot, or completely dishonest/biased. We have been trying to fix this situation for the past month, and no progress has been made, because Riot is biased towards the

organization, by not acting on it. This was Riot's shot at growing the OCE scene, and I feel really bad for the OCE players. Some of them are really talented but their infrastructure is 5 years behind NA. I don't think Tainted Minds understand how badly they are showcasing their region, it is extremely selfish from them to act the way they do. There is a reason every

team/player in OCE hates your organization, even players playing for your own team right now.



Even though I think Riot OCE decisions have been really bad, I still want to thank the player coordinators (Ben and Laura) and the OCE broadcast crew (Benji and the cameraman who im sorry I forgot the name) really awesome people that I had the pleasure to meet and interact with. I wish best of luck to the OCE players, there are some really talented players, but its

easy to see how the infrastructure is slowing you guys down. I sincerely hope some of you get imported over to NA.



TLDR

Plenty of issues caused by Tainted Minds making me unable to get any practice and terrible living conditions

Decided to legally terminated my contract

Riot will keep us in the database until the organization says to remove us.

Have no other options but to go public about those issues, if I want my situation to be fixed in time for next split

The only 2 ways of solving this is 1. court, or 2. Force riot to change their stance on the database, and Riot isn't

recognized to act on anything except if its a hot topic in the community (reddit/twitter)

Special shoutout to Tainted Minds for threatening to sue me if I go public

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