Tundra’s players can’t get their story straight around one of Dota’s biggest TI11 memes

Fata was kicked from Tundra Esports in January 2022. When the news first surfaced, Tundra players decided to keep silent while Fata expressed his disappointment. Though replacing Fata with Saksa worked in Tundra’s favor as they won TI11, the team’s coach, Aui_2000, stirred up the kick debate in his latest blog, which was followed with a series of explanations from Sneyking and Neta “33” Shapira.

While fans were surprised to see Tundra bring up the drama out of nowhere, each statement featured gaps in knowledge which would get filled in the following one. They all had one common thing, however, as they all ended up confirming Fata’s side of the story even if they tried to put a different spin to the whole situation.

The first statement came from Aui_2000 this morning, where Tundra’s coach explained how Fata never saved Sneyking’s slot in the team. The discussion was later carried over to Twitter, where Tundra’s current captain Sneyking chimed into the debate.

Sneyking’s side of the story rather looked similar since when read correctly, it was pretty much confirming the initial story shared by Fata post-kick. Shortly after he left the team, Fata mentioned that he had been vetoing multiple attempts from players to kick others on the team, and he finally ended up as the one being kicked.

When combined with 33’s follow-up statement under Sneyking’s tweets, fans could put together a timeline from Tundra players’ somewhat contradicting stories. According to the comments from Tundra players, here’s how the Fata kick could have gone down.

• Saksa reached out to 33, post-TI10, asking whether they wanted to play with him since he didn’t want to play in OG without the two time-TI-winning cast.
• The situation was brought to Fata’s attention, but he didn’t want to kick anyone for Saksa and keep the team’s core. Given that Saksa plays position four like Sneyking, there’s a chance that Tundra players were looking to kick Sneyking for Saksa at this point, or they wanted to move Fata to a coaching position, which also seemed weird at the time since they already had a coach.
• After proceeding without Saksa, Tundra still performed well, but not enough to meet their expectations.
• At this point, either more players became aware of the fact that Saksa wanted to join the team, or the issue was somehow brought to Aui_2000’s attention this time and he gave players authority to do what they felt was right.
• With Aui_2000’s permission, the team went over the captain’s head and took the matter to the organization.
• Tundra wasn’t happy with the team’s decision to kick their captain but ended up agreeing as the majority wanted to play with Saksa.

The situation still looks as grim as it did for Tundra when Fata was first removed from the roster. The series of explanations from the team members only acted as a confirmation of the former captain’s words as they were wrapped up with rationalizing tweets.

Sneyking believed the situation was similar to the legendary Fly-n0tail betrayal arc in which Fly left OG for the greater good of both parties. Tundra’s current captain believed Fly’s actions should be praised as both OG and EG went on to have great seasons, highlighting the initial backlash Fly received.

Regardless of who is in the right or wrong, kicks and roster changes of this caliber are a common occurrence in all types of sports. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made, and it’s relatively challenging to handle these types of delicate matters in a way that can make everyone happy.