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Team Undying, North America (NA)'s representative for The International 10 (TI10), is looking to crowdfund its TI10 Dota 2 bootcamp in the absence of an organization to back it. David "MoonMeander" Tan Boon Yang, the team's position four player, has launched a fundraiser of around $20,000 USD on gofundme. In addition to this, MoonMeander wrote a Twitlonger post about the challenges his team has faced over the past seven months. He explained how despite ping issues and stiff regional league competition, five players from different parts of the world continue to compete without an organization and boot camps ever since Team Undying began in January 2021.
Team Undying attempts to crowdfund its TI10 bootcamp
Team Undying is currently seeking $20,817 from the community from the fundraiser. Waveform entertainment, which handles the bootcamps for esports teams, has informed MoonMeander of this figure for Team Undying's bootcamp.
MoonMeander went on to elaborate on his journey with the NA Dota 2 team on Twitlonger in a post titled ‘Team Undying, the longest journey.' Initially, the support player explained how the five players - Jonathan Bryle "Bryle" Santos De Guia, Kim "DuBu" Doo-young, MoonMeander from NA, Enzo "Timado" Gianoli O'Connor from South America (SA), and Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek from Europe (EU), had to face challenges with high latency and varying time schedules. Though MoonMeander knew there would be problems, he nonetheless went forward with the squad knowing that there was an underlying fire within them.
In addition to this, he described how difficult the regional league was for Team Undying in the NA division. In both the regional leagues, Team Undying finished third, narrowly missing out on the Majors slots to fellow NA Dota 2 teams Evil Geniuses and Quincy Crew.
Upon not qualifying, MoonMeander's mind was filled with memories of the past.
“All this failure and sadness reminded me of the times where I had to play with NA stacks for open qualifiers, where teammates left 1 day before opens to join forward gaming, the price you have to pay for playing with a stack, there are no contracts so people can leave ANYTIME, weeks/months of practice down the drain because 1 guy saw the grass was greener on the other side.”
He noted that this was not the case only in North America but also in Southeast Asia (SEA) where stacks could not go on to become full-fledged teams. Finally, MoonMeander says, Team Undying was born just before the restart of the DPC in January 2021.
MoonMeander highlights the importance of a bootcamp for Team Undying
At the end of his Twitlonger post, MoonMeander explained that despite hurdles and experiencing the roughest patch of his life, Team Undying managed to secure a spot at TI10.
“We carried this, alongside watching countless hours of discord streams, ping issues, no bootcamp, no org, no sponsor, we qualified to TI10. 5 years since my last TI, after playing in 3 regions, multiple kicks, multiple backstabs, definitely the roughest patch of my life, made it to TI. Nice. So now what you ask? Bootcamp. We have tried multiple times with sponsors/organizations, some even got poached, some want to wait till after TI10, some think NA is too unstable.”
MoonMeander wants nothing more than a bootcamp because he wants all of his team members to be together, practice, and have a chance to prove themselves at TI10.
“I want them (team members) to be unshackled by ping, to be able to finally see each other in person, scrim together, eat together, have fun together. These boys have stuck with me, through thick and thin, to get here, loyal to the end, and it would break my heart if they don't get the same chance as premium organizations do, to compete at TI10. We don't need a chef, we don't need a masseuse, we don't need first class tickets, we just need a bootcamp.”
Recently, we had the opportunity to speak with DuBu who also said that "Solid bootcamp" and "Visa" were two of the most important aspects he looked for in an organization. However, following the interview, Team Undying published a tweet announcing that it would play at TI10 under its own banner as an independent team. However, Team Undying is still looking for sponsors heading into The International.
