Daxak Opens up About His Departure From HellRaisers

HellRaisers’ former carry Nikita “Daxak” Kuzmin recently talked about his untimely departure from the organization, during a livestream. Despite having secured a spot at the upcoming Lima Major in Peru, HellRaisers announced that it parted ways with Daxak. While many were confused with HellRaisers’ decision, the Russian carry noted that he has done himself proud during his short time with the team.

However, during his recent livestream Daxak admitted that there was no love lost between him and the team as he went on to talk about the reasons behind his departure.

Daxak noted that he had a hard time trying to get through to his teammates

A week after his departure from HellRaisers, according to cybersport.ru, Daxak talked about his short stint with the team as well as the reasons behind his departure on his personal livestream.

He started off by talking about how he got invited to HellRaisers, as he had no other offers during the off-season. “The problem is that I didn't text everyone about finding a team after Inta, plus I'm not as outgoing. I tested at TSM for a "trial" - didn't fit. Other than that, I had a couple of weak offers that I didn't even consider. I found myself in a situation: either go to HR [HellRaisers] or go nowhere.”

He also further went to say that he had done himself proud by helping the team qualify for the Major despite their differences. “In HR I had to do a gigantic job, so that the raw team was selected for the major and had a good chance at it. Overall, I'm proud of what I did.”

He then went on to talk about the reasons behind his departure from the team. Daxak claimed that the team’s training sessions were not up to par and that there were little to no discussions on how to improve the team’s performance.

“According to the draft, some of the scrims were supposed to end in 10 minutes, but they ended in 60 and it is generally unclear in what favor. After that, no conclusions were made, there was no analysis and no training process. And how Solo wanted to make conclusions, that some heroes are good and some are bad - I do not understand.” he said.

He also claimed that the team atmosphere was less than ideal, as he had trouble communicating with teammates due to almost no team bonding sessions. 

“Against that backdrop, there was a [bullshit] atmosphere on the team. Let's say there's Gleb [depressed kid]. A very good player - I can't say anything, he's played all of the officiating games awesomely. But what he does in scrim - is complete [trash]. Just like in the public - a typical dead inside. Stops talking, stops playing, does things out of spite.”

Daxak then noted that all of his pent-up frustration reached a boiling point after HellRaisers qualified for the Lima Major, as he voiced out his opinions about the team as well as coach Aleksandr "Nofear" Churochkin with whom he had issues with.

“Before the kick, Nofear started gaslighting me, saying how bad I am and how I'm doing nothing, even though before he was constantly sucking up, praising me, saying how good I am, and how much he learned from me. In the end, it was an ultimatum: it's either me or him. Otherwise, it was impossible to go on, at least for me.” 

Daxak also said that he was offered to play with the team until the end of the Lima Major despite their differences, however was removed from the roster due to the team accusing him of lacking motivation.

“They offered me to go to the Major together, because I "deserved it", and then to part ways afterwards. I said that I need to think for a while. In the end, I agreed to go on their terms, but asked them to clearly spell out my duties, so no-one could complain that I got into their business. But they suddenly started saying to me that I'm not motivated enough to go. I could silently go on and put up with this, we would go to the Major. But why? For me that's a waste of time and nerves. And my mental state is more important for me than going to the Major with HellRaisers. What result will they get?”

However, he also claimed responsibility for his part in the removal as he noted that he had trouble with social interaction.

[transcriptions via cybersport.ru, translation via DeepL]

HellRaisers' coach Nofear has since replied to Daxak’s criticism on his wife’s Telegram channel, claiming that Daxak was living on his own schedule, and players used his sleep time for preparation, since it was "important" for them to not have him there.

“At 20:00, Nikita was going to bed, and from there, until 2-3 AM, we prepared for the games, watched something, etc. Daxak didn't know about it. For us, it was important that he wasn't there. It's hard to argue for hours, wasting time, to decide who is better, Slark or Gyro. We didn't do it on purpose, it was just happening this way, you know: after Nikita was going to sleep, people were starting to feel alive, get the energy to do something, speak and have fun. You can make your own conclusions from that.”