Meet Your Makers loses Hearthstone team in wake of Azubu sponsorship

All but one of the Meet Your Makers Hearthstone roster, including Dima “Rdu” Radu, one of the game’s biggest stars, will leave the team this month, GosuGamers reports. Dutch player Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk is still in talks with the organization.

The team’s lesser known players Anton “Semijew” Holm and Jan “Skip” Birkmeyer have left the team immediately, while Radu will not re-sign with the team at the end of the year. Radu told the Daily Dot he will likely sign with a new team in January, but his destination is not confirmed at this time.

Meet Your Makers have punched above their weight in Hearthstone this year, with Radu winning DreamHack Summer and Deck Wars Season 2 and Molendijk claiming victory at DreamHack Bucharest. If they are unable to keep hold of Molendijk, the team will likely struggle to field a competitive roster in 2015. The sport’s free agent pool has been diminished thanks to the establishment of Jason “Amaz” Chan’s new team, Archon, and a number of recent pick ups by other squads.

MYM recently signed a deal with Twitch competitor Azubu as their main sponsor. That move has proven fatal to two other teams in Hearthstone space, Team Coast and Curse. Players said the Azubu sponsorship was a major factor in the decision. The relatively young platform has only a fraction of the audience that Twitch has. A move away from the platform doesn’t just hurt a players’ popularity, it cuts into his bottom line.

H/T GosuGamers | Photo via DreamHack/Flickr