Gunnar at ESL One Mumbai: "I feel like he didn’t enjoy playing with me."

From qualifying for the Major and booking tickets to Paris, to going 4-0 in the Group Stages of ESL One Mumbai then getting eliminated after losing four games in a row, and finally being kicked out from his team thus losing the opportunity to go to the Major. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions for Gunnar over the past few days.

Gunnar was kind enough to chat with us here at the NSCI Dome, the location of ESL One Mumbai, to talk about the recent events.
 

Gfreak: Hi Gunnar, we’re sorry to hear what went down yesterday. Can you walk us through what happened?

Gunnar: There was like a big talk I think, in the day. It was already decided, I don’t think that the talk changed any opinions. I wasn’t there for most of the talk. I mostly heard of the talk after, but the other four were there. It was kinda decided before, so I just walked in and they kinda just told me that, to cut it short, you’re being replaced.
 

Gfreak: Unfortunately, this is the second time that you’re being removed from a team with Eternalenvy, is there some kind of a synergy issue? Or do you think the issue is something else?

Gunnar: I don’t know if I’d say it was a synergy issue. I thought I would fit the way he’d like to play kind of. He likes to be the one to win the game. He likes to be this really strong hero, I am so strong that I am going to win this game. I felt the way I played, made it easy for him to play that way.

But, I feel like he didn’t enjoy playing with me. I don’t know the reasoning. It wasn’t only his decision on either team, to my understanding. It was a full team decision. For this one, the remaining team also made the decision, to not play with me. So I don’t think that it should be fully blamed on him or he should get the only hate on the team or whatever.

I don’t think there should be hate in general, people get kicked all the time. I don’t really have beef with him now.
 

Gfreak: So what next? Have you been offered a place in any of the teams? Or are you still looking for a team?

Gunnar: I am looking for a team right now. I plan to go back home, start playing Dota and get to Top 1 again in the leaderboards. Let’s see what happens.
 

Gfreak: Will you be willing to move to another region?

Gunnar: Yeah.
 

Gfreak: There are a lot of Free agents in the scene, will you be willing to team up with say Sammyboy or Newsham? Or have you not really thought about it yet.

Gunnar: I think Newsham is really super good. I really enjoyed playing with him that’s why I said that I’d like to play with him again. But we both know that it is kinda hard to make a decision, at the moment, to say I am only going to play with you.

It’s ideal, I would like to play with him if possible but as of now, I don’t have any commitments.
 

Sayan (AFK Gaming): You kinda hinted on the panel, saying that you spoke about this before coming to the event. Would you like to elaborate on that?

Gunnar: I don’t want to elaborate too much, but basically it was brought up to us that this roster shuffle was going to happen before coming to this event and then we ended up not doing it and we were kind of told that this wouldn’t happen until post-major.

So we were kind of told, going into this, that it was all over. You guys are good.
 

Gfreak: Do you think Valve rules must be tweaked a little bit to offer protection to players? Do you feel it’s unfair that you qualify for a major with a team but you still don’t get to play in it?

Gunnar: I think it’s kind of unfair. But at the same time, I don’t know what the rule would be or how they would enforce it. As of now, since they’re trying to enable players in the way they are running it right now, you also have to live with the fact that they can enable the other 3 players.

That if they don’t want to play with us, they can’t be forced. But at the same time, where do you draw the line between going with the players that got kicked or the players who kicked?
 

Gfreak: Thank you so much for talking with us Gunnar.

Gunnar: Thank you.


 

See also: Interview with EternaLEnVy: "I think the fact that you have qualifiers right after the major is ridiculous."