Cover-Credits:
Dota 2
Popular Dota 2 player and two-time TI champion, Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka has long been known for his playstyle, charms, and signature plays with Earth Spirit. Before becoming the back-to-back champion with OG, JerAx was a prat of Team Liquid.
In 2016 JerAx's abrupt transfer from Team Liquid to OG left people to speculate that he was kicked from Liquid and the speculation remained for years as no one cleared the rumors.
However, in a recent interview with esports journalist Duncan "Thorin" Shields, JerAx took a dip into the past and cleared the dust off the speculations.
Reflecting on the past, JerAx told Thorin that he was not kicked from Liquid but instead left the team by his own will due to his depreciating mental health at the time.
JerAx Confirms He Was Not Kicked From Team Liquid in 2016
Ahead of becoming a two-time TI champion and making history, JerAx was donning the white and blue Team Liquid colors for almost a year. During this time, Liquid won EPICENTER 2016 and seemed to be one of the stronger teams in the circuit.
As things seemed to be going well for Liquid, the sudden transfer of JerAx left everyone scratching their heads for an answer.
No clear reason was given, resulting in speculations that he was kicked out of the team. However, JerAx’s recent statement in an interview with Thorin has cleared out the years-old speculation.
Talking to Thorin, JerAx said, “I was stressed and almost burnt out, it would’ve been the second time. So I felt like I just needed some fresh air. I liked these guys, I told them ‘I am leaving you guys need to understand this; you know I am not feeling well.’ No one kicked me; maybe I wouldn’t have been kicked.”
Adding further context behind this matter, JerAx said that he had very low self-esteem during that time and it was not due to his lack of self-confidence as a player but due to his poor living state.
He recalled moments when his teammates would smoke a boatload of cigarettes while talking to him and he would not be able to focus at all. He remarked that “it was no way to live life.”
But who knew? JerAx, now a retired player, had seemingly made a historic choice to move to OG and become a part of the first-ever, two-time TI champion team and it all worked out in the end.
In his retirement announcement on 9th December 2022, JerAx said that he did not feel the same way about Dota 2 anymore and had lost his passion for the game. He concluded by stating that he would be playing a lot of other games and experimenting with them.
