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AFK Gaming
On 26th February, minutes before an official match against Shopify Rebellion at the DreamLeague Season 22, Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov dropped a bombshell on X (formerly Twitter) announcing that he was kicked by Tundra Esports. While fans wondered if it was an engagement farming post, it was confirmed true when Tundra went against Shopify Rebellion with Team Klee’s Vladislav "laise" Lais as its offlaner.
Sometime after getting booted, MinD_ContRoL hopped on Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski’s Twitch stream and explained why he was kicked from Tundra. Tundra also took to its socials and tweeted an official notice claiming that MinD_ContRoL made some “unreasonable” demands and refused to cooperate. As a result of this unexpected development, the Dota 2 community, including fans and pros, has been posting its thoughts and sharing jokes and memes around this.
Dota 2 Community Reacts: Shocks, Memes, and Jabs
MinD_ControL’s kick from Tundra was, safe to say, an event that no one saw coming. The drama that ensued after this incident can only be described as chaotic. Kicking one of the most renowned offlaners during an ongoing tournament, one that was going to be MinD_ContRoL’s first tournament with Tundra, has certainly raised a lot of questions and confusion.
On 26th February at 9:40 PM SGT time, MinD_ContRoL tweeted “LFT, just got kicked before the match.” This tweet came in 10 minutes after the game was officially slated to kick off but this new revelation caused the game to start 40 minutes later.
Entity, a Dota 2 organization, was one of the first few organizations to react to this and as expected was taken by shock like any other. It tweeted in confusion, “Bro what's going on.”
Shopify Rebellion, which was geared up to face MinD_ContRoL and Tundra was also caught off guard and reacted with a gif.
Tundra Esports’ former carry Enzo "Timado" Gianoli tweeted a peculiar post that read,” gotta watch your back these days 💀#RoadToRiyahd.” The former Tundra carry had revealed in an earlier interview that he was replaced by Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko at the last minute.
Team Secret on the other hand found a lighter tone to this incident and jokingly tweeted, “Solid first day at work @zai_2002.” For those who haven’t kept in touch with the ongoing Dota 2 scenario, Team Liquid’s former offlaner Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg joined as the general manager for Tundra Esports on 23rd February.
zai’s former team, Team Liquid, was also caught by surprise. It initially thought the post was a hoax but soon found out about the authenticity of the post and tweeted, “Wait this is actually real? 😧 thought it was troll…”
Gorgc, Mira "Ephey" Riad, and Team Spirit were as confused as any other and tweeted, “???”
Team Spirit also took to X and posted an image to mock an earlier post from Tundra.
OG’s Sébastien "Ceb" Debs mocked Tundra's decision and tweeted, “Hey @OGesports I know I didn't play very well in the last game but pls let me play one more no kick pls #RoadToRiyadh.”
Gaimin Gladiators finished with a draw against OG and won against Virtus.pro on day 2 tweeted.
These are just a few of the various reactions that were seen from the Dota 2 community. Recent developments claim that Tundra Esports kicked MinD_ContRoL for internal disciplinary investigation. Stick around to find out more about this ongoing incident as it continues to develop.
