"Is there a circus in town? Do they need more clowns? It is ridiculous."
Kyle "Kyle" Freedman is a popular Dota 2 analyst who was on the analyst panel for the WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon tournament. The quote above came after an elimination matchup between teams Nigma and Aggressive Mode.
The source of Kyle's ire seemed to be the way Nigma showed little respect for their opponents and the game - after winning the first match in the BO3, Nigma decided to mix things up and fool around with their draft and roles. For example, Kuroky went mid with Slardar while Miracle went hard support with a Shadow Shaman,
The fact that Nigma did not take things seriously even after some questionable moves prior to this incident appeared to anger Kyle. This included turning down Team Liquid after finishing 2nd at TI, taking a break from the first Major, getting beaten down by Beastcoast and finishing 9th-12th at the second Major, and completely failing to qualify for the third Major.
“You come here to the last tournament your team is going to play, for a month and a half, and you put W33 offlane, GH in the jungle, Kuroky on a core mid and Miracle on a hard support. What is this? How arrogant do you have to be? This is disrespectful to your opponent...to your brand. You're representing your own organisation. You wanna get sponsored? This is how you think you are going to get it?"
Do you think Nigma had the right to fool around on their own terms? Or should they have shown more respect to their opponents AND their profession? After all, how can we expect the general public to take esports seriously if professional players won't even take their own game seriously?
