Last night it became known that the esports division football team Anji will be closed. Cyber Anji project manager Murad Aliyev announced this on his Twitter page.
Note that in the replies to the tweet, he asked that this be considered an official statement.
The Cyber Anji project is closed. You need to forget working in this club like a nightmare.
A little later on your VKontakte page Murad published a blog in which he reported the true reasons for the closure of the composition.
When we came to this FC with our project, we asked for a year of time and certain funding to achieve results. We came to an agreement with the management and got to work. The roster was assembled and contracts were concluded with the players, according to which the guys were supposed to receive salaries on the 10th of every month.
After the first month of work (March), the only player with a contract at that time received a salary, everything was fine, but then the fun began. The 10th of May came and the players’ salaries had not been received, after which I began to ask the management about the reasons for the delay in the payment of salaries, to which they told me that everything would be paid tomorrow. They fed us “breakfasts” until the beginning of June, explaining this by the end football season, delays in accounting, etc. All this was very stressful, because the qualifications for TI7 were just around the corner and the guys needed a bootcamp, for which I also asked for money.
Somewhere in early June, we managed to achieve a spontaneous meeting with the management, at which they explained to us the true reason for the delay - unsatisfactory results, and that the club had only “costs” for this project. It turns out interesting, right? This is despite the fact that we initially asked for a year of time, but only three months passed and the salary was given only one (!) time to one player.
During this meeting, as it seemed to us at that time, we managed to convince the management to give time until the end of June (qualifier for TI7) and give the players salaries and money for the bootcamp. We were assured that the money would be available the next day and we immediately informed one of the players who needed it more than others.
The next day, as you may have guessed, there was no money. So that the club would not fall at all in the eyes of this player, I transferred his salary from my personal money, being confident that Anji would give the money back.
In the following days, my calls and messages to management were ignored. Unfortunately, the guys were left without a bootcamp and I feel very sorry for them, I am sure that they would have performed much better if they had been together.
They simply didn’t give a damn about us, along with the players, and left us in this position.
On this note, the Cyber Anji project is being closed.
Goodbye.
Let us remind you that the team Cyber Anji was created in early March, and included the legendary XBOCT. Unfortunately, the team could not find its game, constantly changed the roster and became embroiled in several scandals related to player transfers. At the qualifiers for The International Cyber Anji with a result of 3-6 she took eighth place in the group.
More and more often we hear how this or that football club enters into contracts with FIFA players - such news in 2017 will surprise few people. But hardly anyone could have imagined that the first Russian club Anzhi will be the one with its Dota 2 team.
Why do football clubs need Dota?
A Dota team is a profitable investment not only for the management of football clubs. According to the international analytical company Newzoo, by 2020 the total income in esports will grow to $1.5 billion. Football clubs have sufficient administrative resources to support a Dota team. At the same time, the costs of a Dota squad cannot be compared with the costs of a football team - the salaries of top Dota players are measured in tens of thousands of dollars, not millions, and most of their income comes from prize money. An ideal option for the club: we spend little and get a lot.
Prize money in Dota is unprecedented and continues to grow - prize fund last year's The International championship exceeded $20 million. Add in the money of new sponsors who do not want to play football (computer manufacturers, platforms for selling games, cyberbookmakers) and you will understand why a Dota team is an excellent investment that, with due diligence, can pay off very quickly.
Then why do most clubs still not have a Dota team?
Despite its growing popularity, Dota has not become more accessible. Football clubs do not have specialists who can lead their Dota squad to success. No wonder he is the head of one of the best American organizations Evil Geniuses is hers former player– 25-year-old Peter Dagher. It’s hard for outside specialists to infiltrate esports. The exception is Roman Dvoryankin from Virtus.pro, who was the marketing director of the hockey team Spartak. But there are very few such examples. Dota as a business is incomprehensible to the heads of football clubs; they do not understand much about the structure of e-sports tournaments, the features of scouting, etc. Investments in such situations are like bungee jumping on a moonless night.
How did Anji solve this problem?
You could say it's brilliant. They invited a veteran of the Dota scene – Alexander “TAIL” Dashkevich. At the birth of Dota as an eSport, he became the world champion and won everything he could as a member of the Na’Vi team. He is familiar with the inner workings of Dota like no one else. Alexander was signed as a player, but he better days in this capacity behind. In fact, Anzhi needs Alexander in order to attract attention to the project from the very beginning and organize the work of the club’s new department. According to KHOST himself, eSports at Anzhi are handled by a separate division of young guys who have no experience. Thus, Anzhi shot two birds with one stone - they took a player with millions of fans around the world, and at the same time a manager who will help organize the work of the e-sports department.
Where did Anji get the rest of the players?
Good players are perhaps the most important investment in Dota. There is no phenomenon of coaching teams in Dota; All other things being equal, the team with the best performers will win here. The problem is that in our region there is an acute shortage of free players high level. Anji coped with this too, taking three players from the Comache organization, essentially ruining the team.
The community reacted to the news sharply negatively. Nobody negotiated with Comanche, and management did not receive any money for the players. It turned out that the guys did not have contracts, so Anji did not even communicate with the organization. On the day the trio transferred to Anzhi, Comanche had a game scheduled.
E-sports in Russia is quite young, and not everything in it follows strict business laws. Organizations try not to spit in the well and thank the side that suffered from scouting, even if the players did not have normal contracts. A kind of e-sports etiquette that Anzhi neglected. On the other hand, no one stopped the Comanche management from concluding normal contracts with the players. Anji acted based on football principles, where a free agent is a free agent. One way or another, I had to spit into the well.
What's the result?
The Anzhi team took part in the selections for the Russian eSports Cup, was able to defeat the little-known Newday, but lost without a chance to Team Empire, which is now among the top 4 teams in the CIS, and left the tournament.
“We don’t have any goals yet.” We'll just play and see what happens. There aren’t really any tournaments yet, so we’ll play some small ones,” says team player Maxim “Yoky” Kim.
Alexander “TAIL” Dashkevich has completely different plans: he wants Anzhi to qualify for The International 7, the main Dota championship.
He left the following words with the post: “The Cyber Anji project is closed. You need to forget working in this club like a nightmare.” and asked that this be considered an official statement.
It all started when we came to FC with our project, for which we needed about a year of time and a certain amount of finance. We discussed everything with the management, they agreed, then we started work. Was collected good composition, all contracts with the players have been signed, where the guys must receive salaries on the 10th of every month.
When March ended (the first end of work), only one player with a contract received a salary, it would seem okay, but then something interesting began... May 10th comes, not a single player on the team receives a salary, after which I began to write to management questions about this to find out the reasons . They did not give an exact answer, but only fed us “breakfasts” until June, saying that these were delays in the accounting department, this is always the case at the end of the football season. When it already started to become very stressful, especially knowing that the qualifiers for TI7 were coming soon and everyone needed a bootcamp, for which I, of course, asked for money.
I managed to get a meeting with management at the beginning of June, where they told the true reason for the delay in finances - the unsatisfied results of the cyber team, and this project only causes “costs” and does not bring profit. Strange, right? Since we asked for time - one year - to play and raise the level, and what are the costs? If one player was paid a salary once, the rest were not.
At the same meeting, we were able to persuade the management to give us time until the end of June (qualifiers for TI7), pay our salaries and give us money for the bootcamp. We were all assured that the money would be there the next day; we told this to the player who at that time needed the money most.
There was no money the next day, so in order for the club not to fall in the eyes of this player, I had to pay him a salary from my personal money, saying that Anzhi would give me the money. However, all my messages and calls were ignored by the club management. Therefore, the guys were left without a bootcamp, which I feel very sorry for them, since I understand that they could have performed much better if they had been together.
They simply didn’t give a damn about us, along with the players, and left us in this position.
On this note, the Cyber Anji project is being closed.
Goodbye.
I would like to remind you that the Cyber Anji team was created at the beginning of March, which included the legendary TAIL. But since the team could not find its game, so it constantly changed the roster, thereby only getting drawn into new scandals related to player transfers. At the qualifiers for The International, Cyber Anji took eighth place in the group with a score of 3-6.
Former Cyber Anji Dota 2 roster:
- Evgeniy ‘Chuvash’ Makarov
- Maxim 'yoky' Kim
- Alexander ‘NoFear’ Churochkin
- Yaroslav ‘Pikachu’ Vasilenko
- Vadim ‘Sedoy’ Musorin
A series of stories on television, tons of comments and reposts from loyal fans - all this accompanied the enchanting return to the competitive scene of the legendary carry of all times - Alexander "TAIL" Dashkevich. The news of the signing of the contract literally blew up the Internet, uniting not only Dota fans, but also fans of the Makhachkala football team "Anji".
Alexander at the moment of signing the contract
Similar practice of financing e-sports teams sports organizations widespread in the west. An excellent example will serve as the signing of players by the Danish football club Copenhagen Counter Strike: Global Offensive from Team Dignitas. And so, after some time, domestic marketers from Cyber Anji finally got their bosses to recognize e-sports as a full-fledged competitive discipline, which is really worth investing in.
On at the moment the team has a permanent roster and an impressive fan base. The team has received several invitations to upcoming tournaments and is training daily. In this article I propose to analyze the situation with the birth of e-sports "Anji", assess their current situation and try to predict possible prospects for their existence.
So, the exact date of creation of the esports division should be considered the moment the organization announced its cooperation with TAIL`om, the signing of the contract took place on March 4, 2017. On this day, without exception, all Dota news portals were full of provocative headlines about phenomenal cooperation. The news was supplemented by a short interview with Alexander, a beautiful video and a story on the Match television channel. No one argues that the event is far from standard, and therefore has the right to be widely disseminated in the media.
Thus, on the horizon we had a future team with an eminent and serious organization behind it, which would undoubtedly provide the team with impressive financial support.
Interview with TAIL`om for the site football club "Anji"
What happened next? We all remember the drama that turned out to be for the “leader” and owner of the esports organization Comanche Denis Shapkarin with the loss of the current staff. TAIL, having secured his popularity and, as is known from an interview with the community manager of the Indians, more serious salaries, he actually “stole” three of Mikhail’s players "Misha" Agatova, Igor "iLTW" Filatova and Evgenia "Chuvash" Makarov, which at that time were not legally assigned to the organization by contracts. This led to real tragedy for all fans Comanche. After all, only two players remained under the protection of the “Indians” flags: . Ark And XaKoH. But in the end we had to refuse the services of the latter. The team's management, having recovered from extreme stress, began testing players who are currently free agents. By the way, the role of Evgeny Kochetkov is now being replaced by the more experienced Andrey "Mag" Chipenko, who remained outside the new composition Vega Squadron.
Talking about the lost lineup Comanche, it is impossible not to mention that by the time of performance at regional qualifications The Kiev Major The guys have already formed their own unique fan base, which literally “from the inside” watched the life of the team through the blog “The Path to Esports.” Denis Shapkarin, the owner of the young organization, has created the most favorable conditions for his players for productive training and subsequent results. The team had everything to their credit, including a luxurious country house with a swimming pool. It would seem Comanche had everything that even the richest esports organization could boast of. As the show's hosts noted "WS Live" in the episode with Vladimir "PGG" Anosov, Denis treated his charges “like a father treats his children.” “Vozhd” approached every defeat with understanding, although, in fact, the team did not bring in practically any money, and the investment in the guys did not pay off. And, at the same time, he spoiled the guys quite generously in case of victory. Simply put, such conditions can only be envied.
Fragment of the program “The Path to Esports”
But, be that as it may, the guys traded the “Indians” camp in favor of vague prospects Cyber Anji. By exchanging stability and a friendly atmosphere for contracts, they significantly damaged their reputation and made the audience even more empathetic to the owner of the organization. In light of recent events, it turned out that Denis completely despaired of any future for his brainchild, and decided to transfer the rights to manage the organization into the hands of more ambitious and positively minded people. It is obvious that he was simply disillusioned with the slippery Dota community. When creating his own team, he saw only glorious prospects before him, without thinking about possible twists of fate. The “Leader” completely and completely trusted his charges. Fortunately, at the last moment he managed to change his decision and remained at the head of the team so beloved by the public.
As it turned out, even warm friendly relations, which are rare in modern competitive Dota, are not able to preserve the composition. Fame and money matter much more to professional players. Do not forget that not a single team, even the most famous team, is immune from such situations.
Just look at a few examples of management “stealing” players. Natus Vincere
.
Let's return to the chronology. After the guys from Alexander Dashkevich joined Comanche The roster only needed to be filled with a hardlaner, but he didn’t have to wait long. For just under a week there have been rumors on Twitter about Maxim's imminent announcement "Yoky" Kim as the last player CyberAnji, which were later confirmed. You can also blame the team for the collapse of the lineup Friends, but in this case, things were very bad for “Friends”, and Maxim, of course, cannot be blamed for leaving the team. It would be extremely stupid to waste such a chance.
As a result, the following lineup saw the light of day Cyber Anji : TAIL as a captain and first position player, a couple of supports in the person of Misha And Chuvash. Excellent performers in solo roles, who have proven themselves previously: in the offlane Yoky, who has a reputation as a silent lone player who consistently plays in any situation; and in the middle iLTW, which v1lat repeatedly noted as “the future of the CIS Dota”.
The organization announced this composition on March 19, 2017
Since the announcement of the full roster, the newly formed team has only managed to play a series of games in open qualifiers for "Russian Cup". Among the huge number of games against non-pro teams, the team only had to face really strong opponents. In the first case Cyber Anji V bo3 gave in to the confrontation without any chance Team Empire, and in the second they could not overcome the onslaught of the team Effect. Of course, in order to compete with teams of such a high level, you need to have a sufficient amount of experience and work well with team play, which will require large number time.
But, just a couple of days ago, during the tournament Prodota Cup 17 the guys did not manage to defeat even unknown Europeans from Spotnet. I don’t think that players of this level can be satisfied with a 2-1 result in a game with obvious no-names. The team's only achievement for the entire period of playing together can be considered a victory over -Hive.
Now Cyber Anji do not pose any threat to tier-2 teams, although the composition was entrusted high hopes. And we’re not even talking about the hopes of the community or Alexander’s personal fans, who were delighted with the news of the idol’s return to competitive Dota. The problem is the currently unprofitable investments on the part of the organization. Having invested a lot of money, spoiling your reputation with a dramatic situation with the collapse Comanche, management of the club's esports division "Anji" received nothing but a relatively eminent cast. The team's results leave much to be desired.
But was it worth making such a fuss about a roster that could only handle a bunch of amateur stacks announced in the open qualifiers? After all, every time “TAIL and Co.” stopped their march through the qualifiers, reaching a more or less serious team. Was it worth literally “killing” promising Comanche, causing confusion and stress to the organization's management? The answer is obvious. But let's take a more positive look at the current situation.
The tweet was made on the day the players officially left
I'm willing to bet that most people expected to see under the tag Cyber Anji a strong and friendly team with talented performers, which will not be inferior to the top teams from the CIS, and will stand on a par with
Team Spirit And Effect. And this may well work out. Having quite skillful players, charm and natural charisma TAIL`ah, the guys are able to quickly establish team game and be a good competitor to any proven team. Don't discount the team in advance. It is quite possible that fruitful training will bring long-awaited results. Ahead of Cyber Anji Krasnodar tournament Guardians Of The Olympus where they will have to meet Effect, Team Empire And Virtus.Pro. I think that based on the results of this championship, the audience will have a fairly objective opinion regarding the first eSports team to come under the wing of a serious sports organization.
On the night of March 19-20, the management of the Anzhi football club announced a full-fledged squad. The new five turned out to be quite predictable, despite all the assurances that the cybersportsmen are on a probationary period. Whether it still lasts is not specified. Dota legend in the CIS Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich was joined by players from Comanche and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. We'll tell you who joined Cyber Anji.
Alexander "XBOCT" Dashkevich
Role: carry (team captain)
Signature heroes: Lifestealer, Gyrocopter, Juggernaut
The famous “four”, winner of the first The International and vice-champion in the next two tournaments. Dashkevich, together with Natus Vincere, set a record that no one has yet broken - he reached the TI finals three years in a row.
After leaving Na’Vi in 2015, Dashkevich joined Team Empire. The Imperials helped XBOCT interrupt unbeaten streak since November 2014, winning the first season of the Game Show Global eSports Cup. However, the team did not need the services of the Ukrainian cybersportsman for long. Dashkevich tried to play for Fantastic Five and Team Spirit, but he never managed to achieve serious results. As a result, he took a break from playing professionally.
In 2015 and 2016, XBOCT was repeatedly invited to work in the RuHub studio as an analyst during major tournaments.
“The people who invited me to Anzhi were my fans”
Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich - about the football club’s attitude to e-sports, new team players and the behavior of Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk.
Igor "iLTW" Filatov
Role: mid
Signature heroes: Juggernaut, Shadow Fiend, Invoker
They predict a great future for Igor Filatov. The seventeen-year-old cybersportsman is already showing high-quality play and competing with the most experienced mid-laners in the CIS and Europe. The eSports player is not doing well yet, but they have high hopes for him. All thanks to qualifying, where Comanche, for whom he played since July 2016, had a chance to qualify from the group. The team beat Team Spirit, F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Na’Vi and other participants in the qualifiers. However, in play-off match The “Indians” met again with the “born to win.” The match ended with Na’Vi winning with a score of 1:0.
Maxim "yoky-" Kim
Role: offlane
Signature heroes: Tidehunter, Earthshaker, Ax
During his career, Maxim Kim played in all sorts of roles: offlane, mid, carry. However, their best results the eSports player showed in the “difficult” line for Team Empire. No matter how much he runs from it, the player still returns to this position. After leaving the Imperials, Kim never managed to shine in other teams.
“I liked him for a long time, when I was still playing offlane in Team Empire. Then Yoky wanted to play in a different position, tried out for different teams in the mid lane and as a carry. He did a little worse than in the main role; apparently, he needed more time to train. When I asked Yoky if he would like to play on the hard one again, he agreed. Maxim was doing well in the offlane, so I think he’s an excellent candidate,” Alexander Dashkevich said about Kim.
Evgeniy "Chuvash" Makarov
Role: support player
Signature heroes: Earth Spirit, Kunkka, Ogre Magi
Mikhail "Misha" Agatov
Role: support player
Signature heroes: Oracle, Io, Rubick
A bunch of supports that Comanche lost. However, Agatov and Makarov have not played together all the time since the founding of the team. In November 2016, Chuvash began playing for Effect, but returned back two months later.
Agatov came to the team together with Igor Filatov. Together they played for Enso, with whom they took prizes in amateur tournaments.
“These guys have been performing together for a long time. And all three of them expressed a desire to play with me. There is no need to look for someone else, because the guys have already played together and know what they want from each other. And since they suit each other, it means they know how to do something. I very often came across them in rating games, so we already have some experience of communication. It is clear that these guys know how and want to play. When I first talked to them, I was surprised at their intelligence at 18-19 years old. There is a sense in their words, there is no youthful stupidity, they try, they say smart things. “Basically, that’s all that’s needed,” said the captain of Cyber Anji.
The lineup has already been announced for the second stage of the 2017 Russian Cup. As Alexander Dashkevich stated, the team’s task now is to compete maximum quantity tournaments. And if you manage to get into the closed qualification of The International and qualify for the tournament, it will be very good.
