Aaron Bland · @ChuChuZs
15th Mar 2017 from TwitLonger
A tale of a 3 North Americans and 4 Aussies in a Gaming House.
Firstly I want to emphasise that I see no point in highlighting the same issues that everyone is already aware about. My ex team mate @CakeLoL_ has expressed in very specific detail his perspective in his twit longer. I was the last member to enter the house and therefore I cannot provide the most accurate understanding of the pre-existing tension. This write up will not cover everything it is more my experience at the TM house, if you want a more specific read on this matter I suggest you check out Cake's twit longer.
Cake's Twit longer: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1spn2ta
I moved into the Tainted Minds house shortly after New Years on the 4th of January. I wasn't very happy with the house selected as it had numerous issues but it didn't matter to me as all I needed was a stable internet connection. I got along with all the players, Nick (Coach) and Fasffy (Player Manager) really well and it was comforting to join a team that already established a solid schedule of waking up, practice, Vod review, gym sessions and dinner. I loved that everyone had dinner together, it was good way for everyone to get away from the computers and chat. Week by week went by and we started getting into a productive mojo of practicing, Nick's an amazing coach and I was getting really confident in the team. I remember one week of scrims we lost to every team, and the following week we were crushing the top tier teams in OPL. Legacy's jungler Carbon told me that he thought we were on our way to being the best team, and boy I was in a good mood.
Moving forward issues surfaced and things started heading downhill. Around mid January our internet started presenting packet loss issues as well as ShorterACE's computer kept sporadically turning off. Our practice felt disjointed and we had a stable 4% packet loss. I'm not sure if people know how packet loss impacts league but it essentially was like if an Ashe arrow would go off, freeze in place and a second later teleport forward. We dealt with the issue and I stressed on trying to focus on macro play which packet loss didn't play as big a part ,but eventually we all started complaining about losing trades in lane and how this issue was snowballing into impacting a larger part of our practice sessions. We notified TM and we were given permission to head to internet cafes while they investigated the issue, at this time we played our first week of OPL against Exile 5 and won.
The following week we versed Chiefs and wanted to prepare well, but with ongoing internet issues we were forced to practice at internet cafes (special shoutout to guy shot calling Overwatch for 8 hours next to me). We lost 2-0 to Chiefs but I was happy with the games knowing how disjointed our practice was that week. Unfortunately it didn't seem our internet was getting fixed any time soon as a new line was installed only to possess the same issue of packet loss. It was at this moment that I started to get frustrated, traveling back and forth from internet cafes was getting exhausting and we couldn't play the game at home. The morale of the team was descending but we tried to keep each other positive and still focus on improving, mostly through watching OPL vods, LCS or LCK.
In early February we organised to head to another net cafe in the city that hopefully would be quieter, but on the way a player was left behind. This created an argument between players, coach and manager and it was the first time we had started arguing between ourselves. Issues mentioned in our Skype chat were still unresolved and we got crushed by Dire Wolves that week in OPL. I was shattered, we were improving so quick one week and within such little time all these exterior issues had rained down on us at once. It was around this time that we had gone to Riot for a mediation with TM about the issues in the house along with contractual obligations for some players. We all left fairly reassured that things would get better but later found out that night that Fasffy's contract was terminated. I was really upset for her as she had organised so much for me but specifically everything for the NA guys (visas, flights, contracts).
It started getting really depressing in the house, every day felt like another fight on top of the ongoing discomforts of the house. The packet loss issue was still going on, and players started considering leaving. The entire atmosphere of the house was crushed, we didn't know what to do. We played a solo queue game every now and again but it more reassured our stress of how difficult it was to play the game. That week we canceled scrims on Legacy about 7 times and they ended up losing to Sin in OPL that week (our whole team felt guilty). Seeing my previous team mates lose a series that I no doubt played a large role in preparation for was upsetting.
We couldn't go to internet cafes anymore, it was getting ridiculous and also our Opal cards (public transport card) were getting expensive. We lived in a gaming house only to sleep in intense heat and wake up to unplayable internet. We were just sitting in the computer room talking and trying to resolve issues, that day we had 12 power outages each taking turns going out into the 48 degree Celsius heat to restart the power.
The following day we went to Riot mostly out of desperation on getting things fixed as well as their office Air con. Another couple days went by and we had our game against SIN, we hadn't properly scrimmed in about 2 weeks but played our best and ended up winning the series. After much discussion our minds were set on leaving, we couldn't deal with the issues anymore. The following day all the players (except Praedyth) and Nick decided it was within our best intentions to leave. I'm the only one who lived in Sydney and offered for all of them to stay at my house as we had entered a legal battle and it could take some time.
Cake, ShorterACE and Nick all stayed with me for about 4 weeks before heading off and in that time through these difficult times it really bonded us as a team. It's sad it ended this way.
I managed to get back into University and will be looking at focusing on that this year. I always be watching OPL, might even look at being a contracted mid laner for the OCE scene by the looks of things. Anyway, I will leave it at that.
Thank you for reading and I deeply wish all the best to Ryan, Tristan, Andrew, Mark, Fasffy and Nick.