Update 5:36 p.m. EDT: Scrub Killa has spoken out about his departure from mousesports. New details are included at bottom.

For the first time ever, a player has left his team while the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) season is active. Having joined at the start of this season, Kyle “Scrub Killa” Robertson has now already departed from mousesports, which will continue with their substitute player, the Italian Ario “Arju” Berdin.

Scrub Killa’s departure explained by Lethamyr

So far, Scrub has remained mostly silent on the matter apart from a few brief tweets, but updates are slowly coming out from other corners of the Rocket League scene. His coach at mousesports, Treyven “Lethamyr” Robitaille, explained on Twitch that Scrub wanted to be self-employed, rather than an employee of Mouz, and refused to use sponsored items that they’d sent him on stream. On top of that, Scrub allegedly “didn’t like that his Twitch and YouTube channels were under the mousesports name,” and when Mouz told him he was to be fined him for not honoring the contract, he put in his resignation.

Of course, that’s one side of the story and we await Scrub Killa’s own explanation. Regardless, it’s a sad series of events so close to the play-offs while mousesports was still fully in the race for the title of European Champions. And while Arju is considered a talented player, to lose Scrub mid-season has to be a kick in the teeth. However, it does seem like mousesports was planning to make a change at the end of the season anyway.

What’s next?

Scrub is considered one of the best players in the world, so finding a new team shouldn’t be hard for him. Still, to leave before the season is over either means he took a risk or he already knows of a team that will be making a roster change for next season. It looks like the roster shuffle for RLCS Season 10 is set to begin before the current season has even ended.

Update: Scrub has spoken out on the matter on his Twitch stream and confirms that contract issues were indeed the cause. He claims his contract with mousesports was signed under duress, which voids the contract. Since Mouz allegedly told him that Arju would be playing instead of him if he didn’t sign the contract, he felt pressured into signing if he wanted to play in RLCS at all.

Additionally, Scrub explained that he wanted to leave the organization in two weeks when the RLCS season is over, but he felt a decision had to be made sooner. “I would join Mouz again if they offered me a better contract,” he said, “but I think they’ve just decided to completely ditch me because they’ve not even responded to my email. They just tweeted (Arju as the replacement).”

Finally, Scrub confirmed that he has no team lined up yet, but he expects to be a very sought-after player and that he’ll have no issue finding a new team for RLCS10.

Stay tuned to Daily Esports for any updates on the situation.