Empire explains why they removed Scandal

Scandal was abruptly given the boot a few days back after winning ESWC with the team. Ready with their pitchforks, the fans were not happy. Today, Team Empire has prepared statements from their players and CEO in an attempt to explain why Scandal had to go.

Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov, long time player and captain of Team Empire was abruptly removed from his team after they won ESWC 2013 convincingly. The major reason behind his removal was not stated but many fans were very disappointed that the management of the team had decided to let him go.

Today, Team Empire has gathered statements on why the famous Scandal was removed, by four of their remaining players. While many stated that he was a good guy, the main reason for it seems to stem from his discipline and communication skills. Below are the translated statements:



Airat 'Silent' Gaziev:

I have played with Roman in the old Empire roster and I probably know him best. I would never agree on his removal if there were no good reasons for it. The decision was hard but we discussed it many times before coming to the needed conclusion.

There was a conflict after our loss to Na`Vi at Starladder. We talked to him but he reacted quite harshly to it. The criticism was rather justified in my opinion. In response, Roman just shut himself off and did not try to stand by his point to prove us wrong.

I can't explain why he didn't show up for training several days prior to ESWC without any explanation. We had to train with a stand-in. I almost never talked to him during this period, he came to training and left immediately after; while others would stay and talk to each other.

It was clear that we couldn't discuss anything in-game because his opinions were always different and we couldn't prove him wrong. We couldn't even think about training normally before Techlabs and EMS. For some reason, people usually think that players just want to play with their friends. It is not true. We want to win, win big tournaments and we need to have 100% trust in our teammates for this.



Andrey 'ALWAYSWANNAFLY' Bondarenko:

There is nothing wrong with Roman's personality and there couldn't be. He is a nice person and a great friend. However, some controversies have happened in games in the past month. The way we look at the game, hero-wise and movement-wise, is different. The main reason for that is because he doesn't want to play skirmishes with the reason being that those skirmish games do not give him anything. All in all, Roman is a great person but we couldn't get along in-game.



Andrey 'Mag' Chipenko:

Although he is a great player and a great person, Roman couldn't be in our team. The problems occurred after Starladder, where he took criticism quite aggressively and we couldn't agree on many points about the game. That made us unable to move forward and improve as a team. The change was needed and I hope that it will be good not only for us, but for Roman's new team as well.



Ivan 'Vanskor' Skorokhod:

The substitution of Scandal is a joint decision by me, Mag, Fly and Silent. We talked to management and explained our decision. It's hard to disagree with facts and a joint opinion of players. Roman is a great person and everything was really good at the beginning, but these are some of the reasons why he was replaced:



Roman did not get along with others. We spent most of our time on Skype and in real life as four, without him. Lack of will to play skirmishes, he explained that we actually don't gain anything from skirmishes. At the same time, he didn't suggest what and how we should train. He reacted aggressively to criticism, it was hard to talk to him calmly. He is very quiet and suggests very little; maybe in only 30% of the games.



We didn’t have a captain in our team. We draft and make in-game decisions together. Roman is a great player, and his lack of success here doesn’t mean he won’t be able to do well in other teams. I wish him the best of luck.

Alexander 'StrangeR' Solomonov (CEO) answering FAQ:

Did managers try to talk to Scandal?

Yes, me and Anahronix tried to talk to him several times: at Starladder, ESWC and on the Internet. Roman did not want to change his opinion, he wants to do everything the way he wants to. We partially agreed on his points and so did he on ours, but his action towards the team did not change at all. All the players and managers can prove that I wanted to keep Roman in the team.

Where is Scandal’s comment on this?

The first thing I did was ask him to comment on the situation. He declined, saying that he doesn't have to comment but the organization does.

Is it bad to have no captain unlike Goblak's time with the team?

Yes and no. This is a subject for a blog post. Positive sides are obvious, but we can remember what happened to Scandal and blowyourbrain when Goblak left the team.

Why didn’t you have communication problems in the previous roster?

Who said that there were none? The previous roster had different players and we had Goblak as our captain who synchronized teamplay. That’s why we didn’t have any in-game problems back then.

When I explained the situation to Roman, we had a good talk and understood each other. We decided to stay as friends. However, after reading some comments the next day, he changed his opinion and now, he thinks we are not right.

Source: Team Empire