XPEH: «We organized the best possible bootcamp»

Not so long time ago we prepared an interview with the captain of the team Planet Dog - Alexei «j4» Lipai, who had criticized the organization Prodota Gaming and had told about real reasons to leave the eSports club. The reaction came soon and the owner of Prodota Gaming, Maksim «XPEH» Dyakonyuk, wrote a large enough blog with his point of view on this situation.

See also: An interview with Alexei «j4» Lipai.

Maksim «XPEH» Dyakonyuk's comment:

«I don’t think that this drama is still interesting for someone but even so I want to write this post for a history.

Mister Lipai misses a chronology of events and lots of facts intentionally, accidentally or because of ignorance in his interview, which, in my opinion, distorts reality.

Yes, we had great problems with a communication. Moreover, I tried to gather everyone for a few times and to speak with them, as the word is to clear the air, but Mister Lipai refused, having referred to the fact that this would only cause a mess and he agreed that Milan/Neta would be his representatives in a dialogue with the management.

So this is the short list of key facts, which were during the time of work with gentlemen.

Garter offered to invite NLG 4+1 (Garter) in the beginning of April. I was against it because I understood in advance that this would be over with nothing, plus I had an experience of working with Neta and had heard a lot about Milan but Garter persuaded me that everything would be okay and we would cope with it and create a good team. I agreed (Mistake №1).

And everything started from this moment.

A contract.

I gave guys a contract to get acquainted and received an answer: «The contract is brain damaged and we will not sign it and so on». Also, there were lots of things, which I don’t want to tell. The situation is that you get to a job interview and say that an employment agreement of your employer is brain damaged… What do you think you will be said?

Okay, further - it is more. I said that that was not a problem, asked them to give me their variant and I would look at it and we would decide. Gentlemen had prepared a variant for three weeks, (but I am sure that this was a dodge to search other organizations as an option) they interested periodically if these three weeks were paid. I said that they were.

Summarizing the results, gentlemen presented the following: they removed a point about a training schedule, (wanted to remove a distribution of grabs for an organization…) and the epic point: They added that four players could kick the fifth one with a help of «voting». I have not seen such an epic for a long time. And they agreed that the terms would be until the end of August. That’s all! This was enough to make the contract non-brain damaged. I was enough tired with this, agreed and we signed this contract (mistake №2). I would like to notice that all this was accompanied by an intense conversation with Milan/Neta because I was strict enough in fundamental questions. I didn’t even comment the point about «the voting», just agreed. I really don’t understand this even now. This is important to understand the atmosphere of everything that has happened.

A bootcamp.

Guys wanted a bootcamp as fast as possible. And, of course, they wrote literally on the day of the signing of the contract: «Why are we not at a bootcamp now?» (It doesn’t matter that they have prepared the contract for 25 days. I guess I had to prepare a bootcamp for them during that time).

I answered: «Guys, you have just signed a contract, come on!»

Objectively, I said that it was problematical to make two bootcamps in one month and a half, so they had to go to a bootcamp or to qualifiers. And, of course, if we played very well we would make a bootcamp for qualifiers. They wanted a bootcamp at once.

There were four options:

Kosovo - we had a base there from the last bootcamp. I was in Kosovo personally and in Pristina last year. This is a normal city like any other city in Ukraine, Belarus or Russia (not the center of Moscow, of course). It is with hundreds of airlines, cheap food and others. Yes, there were such problems as the elevator didn’t work to get to the ninth floor but everything was okay this time. All comments about the war are stupid. All Russians had not to go to The Kiev Major with such logic or people does not have to visit Russia because there is Chechnya or Dagestan. In point of fact, Kosovo passed out due to lots of reasons including visa issues.

Russia - visas.

England - visas.

Turkey. Mister Lipai didn’t say even a word about this. But he should.

I think we organized the best possible bootcamp. A house with two floors, 11 channels of a fiber-optic Internet, 11 top computers, 7 bedrooms, a pool, two or three meals per day, a cleaning, a manager from San Francisco, who prepared them a food sometimes and tried to tell them some psychological moments during training and others. A transfer from/to the airport and others http://prodota.gg/ph...ootcamp-turkey/ All these were in Kemal’s house, the former co-owner of Team Secret (Secret had a bootcamp in the FaceIt office in London this year, in a room 3x5.. I was there and they lived somewhere in a flat and they did well).

But for a wonder, Mister Lipai mentioned only that he had once ordered a food somewhere in Turkey with Neta and Google Translate, which disturbed his schedule of training.

I didn’t hear any blames about the bootcamp (as a happiness and a positive, of course). Garter only said that everything had been super, even Neta wrote that the bootcamp had a rate of 11 out of 10.

Unfortunately, we lost all possible qualifiers (The Summit, Galaxy Battles, EPICENTER and others) at the bootcamp and the situation kept heating.

On arrival.

J4 started drafting and said with the next offer. «Why don’t we play one clan war and discuss it and then one more? So two clan wars in a day + two hours of discussions and that’s all!»

For those who don’t know. All pro teams play generally a bo2 and two or three bo2 per day on average. This means 4-6 games.

As a result, nothing came of it because we found no one for such schedule.

I decided to make the last try and offered guys that if they took appropriate places at qualifiers (I don’t remember, maybe second qualifiers to The Summit and something else) and then we would make a bootcamp for a qualification to TI. And this didn’t happen. Such motivation didn’t work. Moreover, I understood that they had not spoken as a team, this means that they didn’t speak five together after games and then it appeared that they had spoken without Garter and others. Real problems started.

Milan wrote me in a couple of days before the disband and said that they had almost done everything for me to make a bootcamp. I answered (in sufficient detail) why I thought that there was no sense in a bootcamp. However, Garter wrote me and asked to give one more chance that he would try to talk with everyone, to gather everyone and to normalize the relationship.

I agreed, we could make it only in Turkey because we didn’t need visas there and we had no time for something else (I don’t understand what Lipai writes about Kosovo, slaves and other or he doesn’t know or understand what happens. On the other hand, this is not surprising, he has to find another filter of communication with a management in teams). I said to Garter to tell that I agreed for a bootcamp but I would go there personally as a manager and if we lost one more time (lower than a top 4), we would divide a payment by half and a half. This is a usual motivative step, which has no connection to my wish to save money.

The end. I don’t how the discussion of this offer was done. But what Garter had told me (and I fully believe him in this aspect) was enough.

This is a short story of our partnership with guys. I have not understood, is Lipai joking about a court over Belarusian or Serb for a contract of the cyber-sportsman? Or is his whole interview some kind of undercover joke or mockery?

I will repeat again (I wrote about this). We would not win anything in that atmosphere and with that roster. This was impossible. So gentlemen from Planet Dog have to thank for everything that has happened in such way and I have made them a great favor, having taken the responsibility and removed the toxic atmosphere. Let them be happy and prepare for TI and not to try to justify themselves and/or to blame me personally, Garter or PD.

That’s all I wanted to say. I wish them good luck and to become the one they want to be in their life.»