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Acend has resorted to releasing Shady “Shaady” Zer in a shocking turn of events following its 7-8th placing at the 2022 Halo Championship Series: Kansas City Major. But the decision was made due to the more recent activity, the devastating loss to Online Warriors.
The franchise had maintained a spotless record since its creation on Dec. 14, 2021. It had won all regional tournaments, earning a total of approximately $56,075. That run was cut short on May 1, 2022, by the hands of a North American esports company, Pioneers.
The best of 5 ended in the favor of Pioneers (2-3) and Acend was eliminated from the HCS 2021-22: Kansas City Major. Sentinels won the title and the $140,000 first-place prize, while Cloud9, OpTic Gaming, and eUnited made up the top four.
The team that proved to be unbeatable, having not lost a single series in Europe, returned to online competition. In week one of the HCS Pro Series’ second split, Acend suffered a loss to Online Warriors.
It anticipated making it to the grand finals through the losers bracket. Acend, however, went head-to-head with Online Warriors in the losers bracket finals. The Warriors claimed the win again and relegated Acend to the third position.
While placing top three is not entirely terrible, the team is motivated differently. The franchise’s urge to make a stamp on the international esports scene drives them as they look to make a significant impact.
Many have assumed that Shaady was released because of their poor outing in the recent tournament. The players have jointly debunked the thought process as they released a statement to that effect.
The players stated that Shaady was not dropped because of the team’s outing in the latest tournament. The players also revealed that the team has not had the greatest chemistry since Raleigh. They went on to share that some things transpired during the LAN tournament, and while they thought they could move past it, it continued to fester.
“First, the most important thing to say is that we didn’t drop Shaady because of the latest tournament, we’ve been winning for 19 months and he is and always will be a part of it as much as we are,” Sica, Lqgend, Snipedrone, and Kronos said. “To be honest, the chemistry on the team hasn’t been working since Raleigh. There are some things that happened in this LAN and onwards and many of us thought about leaving the team or making changes at that point.”
They went on to further share that they had concealed it from the public and hoped that things will get better. While the team kept on winning, the relationship continued to go sour and Acend’s Halo fairytale came to an end.
“We kept all of this private, nothing from us that could lead anyone to think that our team was having issues and everyone kept thinking that Acend’s Halo fairytale won’t be over anytime soon,” the players said.
Reaching their breaking point, the players began to find it difficult to communicate amongst themselves properly. Some were said to be frustrated and others were mentally broken to the extent that winning meant nothing to the group. This, the players revealed was the cause of Shaady’s removal from the team.
“It became impossible to see eye to eye with this team… some felt frustrated, some felt mentally broken and victory couldn’t even heal us anymore,” the player said. “This is why we’ve decided to make a change, to learn what it is to strive for victory once again, to get our passion back, and to give a meaning to everything. We hope that this will make sense.”
There have been no talks of his replacement as many anticipate an addition to be made in the coming days. With HCS Pro Series resuming next week, Acend will be looking to sign a replacement as soon as possible.
