Wen 丨 Amon
At noon on February 24, with several explosions throughout the field, ukraine's quiet day came to an end.
Led by the rapid development of the Internet, even in China, 8890 kilometers away, we have felt the heat and impact of explosives burning.
The topic of war has long been super hot
A hot search is updated every ten minutes on Weibo, the short news scroll bar in the TV is not repeated once, and even the live broadcast of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, can be directly watched on YouTube.
The western air force was completely paralyzed, the eastern tanks continued to march, and the north was hit by high-precision weapons... The news on the battlefield was immediately pushed to our mobile phones without taking a second, and netizens said that it felt like watching a huge map RTS esports game.
At this time, the real esports competitions in Ukraine have been cancelled and postponed one after another, and esports players are also in a panic about war.
First the DPC Eastern Europe Spring Tour was postponed indefinitely, then the D2CL 2022 Season 8 Tournament was suspended indefinitely, and the once-noisy esports world was temporarily suspended with these explosions.
EPICENTER announces the postponement of D2CL 2022 Season 8
"My city was bombed." This sentence, which should have been put in the game as a tactical report, was used by CS:GO pro s1mple from Ukraine to describe his current situation. At noon on the day the fighting began, he was the first to shout on social media:
"Please! Come on! Stop, it can't go on like this, we all need peace! ”
"I'm 'lucky' I'm not home, but I wish I could be there with my family and friends"
The third day of Russia's announcement of war against Ukraine is the semi-final of IEM Katowice, one of the most important events of the year in CS:GO, in which s1mple's NAVI team will face its nemesis G2.
When s1mple and teammate bit walked to the center of the arena wearing the Ukrainian flag, many netizens breathed a sigh of relief, "Look, s1mple once again proved to us that different positions will not affect the players to fight for the honor of victory." ”
Yes, there are 5 main players in the NAVI team, 3 of whom are from Russia and 2 from Ukraine. During the game, s1mple also used the interview session to once again appeal to the world for peace.
"Esports has nothing to do with politics, all players from all teams have nothing to do with the government's decision ... We all want peace, not only for Ukraine, but for the whole world. ”
As a star player playing for CIS in the CIS mixed division, he was the first to stand up, and he was definitely not the last. Because we all know that once the flames of war are ignited, sooner or later they will burn on themselves.
S1mple, who was interviewed that day
Dota 2 legendary Ukrainian player Dendi was awakened by artillery fire on the day of the battle, and he fell into great sorrow and worry, and when some of his friends and family around him ended their lives forever because of the shooting, he could no longer bear the pain in his heart.
In a video uploaded by YouTube, he sat uneasily at his desk and pleaded with young Russians to stop listening to Russian propaganda and stand up against the lies.
Video caption: "Stop The War"
He continues, "In the 32 years I have lived in Ukraine, I have never been bullied for speaking Russian. Russia has so many military personnel who love esports, it should be clear that it is time to put Ukraine back to peace, stop. ”
But is it too late to stop?
As early as the second day of the fighting, two clubs, MIBR and Imperial of CS:GO, announced that due to the turbulent situation in Ukraine, they decided to suspend their training camp in Poland and return to Brazil. Due to the rush back to Brazil, MIBR also withdrew from the knockout stage of pinnacle winter S2.
Team Spirit, a former Ti champion team that is about to travel to Dubai for the invitational tournament, announced that due to the war situation, the Ukrainian auxiliary mira in the team will not be able to participate in the follow-up event and will be replaced by a Russian player RodjER.
None of them themselves are under Russian-Ukrainian artillery fire, but something has been forever shattered by this shock wave that covers the whole world.
Faced with the fate of being involved in the war, some multi-national mixed teams soon issued announcements opposing the war and calling for peace, and many e-sports teams directly replaced the LOGO with the yellow and blue color of the Ukrainian flag.
The Russian players in the team at that time may never have thought that the final stick of the "opposition to war" would fall on their heads.
On 25 February, Belgium's Secretary-General for Immigration and Asylum appealed to the European Union that visas should be restricted to all non-humanitarian Russians.
Once the restriction is passed, the CS:GO Major event to be held in Antwerp, Belgium, in May will be severely affected, and whether those with Russian players will be able to participate is also a mystery.
However, the development did not give us much time to worry about the future, because the next day, the Ukrainian DOTA2 event organizer WEPLAY announced that it would terminate all cooperation with Russian and Belarusian partners and terminate Russian broadcasting from then on.
This has led to WEPLAY, as the organizer of the GAMES GALAXY Invitational, forcing the Russian Virtus.pro (hereinafter referred to as VP) teams to publicly state their position on the Russian-Ukrainian issue, otherwise VPs will be banned.
VP issued a statement accusing WEPLAY
In the announcement issued by the VP team, IT ISPLAY even threatened them to announce that if they did not take a stand, then they would announce that the VP had players who tested positive for the new crown, thus preventing them from continuing to compete.
Bad news always follows.
On March 2, CS:GO organizer BLAST announced that they would not invite any Russian teams to participate in their tournaments for a certain period of time in the future, and would cancel the CIS qualifiers.
In other words, teams such as Gambit, VP, forZe, team Spirit, etc. will all be affected and will not be able to participate in the BLAST Spring Games. In last year's CS:GO World Ranking Top 30, a total of 23 Russian players played in 7 CIS teams, and they are likely to have to leave the Russian team in the future to not be "unemployed".
On March 3, ESL officials also said that in the upcoming EPL S15, teams with obvious ties to the Russian government will be banned from participating, and the two teams that are currently explicitly banned are VP and Gambit.
ESL also claims to know that the players are innocent, so it allows both teams to compete in a neutral name, provided that they do not wear team uniforms or any clothing of sponsors, countries, or organizations where they appear.
VPs have rejected the same demand for WEPLAY before, and presumably they should not be willing to seize this "opportunity". In the statement, VP also said: "We do not support any war in any other country, but forcing someone to take an open position does not bring peace, but rather exacerbates hatred." ”
However, at the end of the announcement, VP said that if the contestants want to participate, then they will also support the individual choices of the contestants.
At the same time, another unexpected team took over this "opportunity" - Team Spirit, they took over the "PEACE" uniform prepared by WEPLAY and got the opportunity to continue to appear in major competitions.
Ironically, Team Spirit is Putin's only esports team that has publicly praised.
For other Russian players who have not taken a public stand, they may be facing the most confused period of their careers.
Now they have two choices, either take off their jerseys and join other teams as neutral, or wait to waste their short and precious careers, knowing that the golden age of an e-sports player is only about 5 years, and once the war breaks out, they don't know when to stop.
VP PUBG players said training and competitions were all suspended
Valorant pro nAts from the Gambit team forwarded EMEA events officials today saying he was sad to find out they were kicked out of the race queue this week. Not only the Gamebit team, but also the Fnatic team has been temporarily suspended for having Russian players.
"We didn't play this week..."
Some people in the Twitter comment section were upset about nAts, and others were almost self-deceptively comforting him, just as if it was more time to practice.
We all forget that daily training is the daily routine of professional players, and when the war is raging, it has become a good life to talk about and comfort.
It is only during the past live slice rotation that we vaguely remember the beautiful scene of Russian and Ukrainian players hugging each other before the war.
Sixteen days ago, Russian and Ukrainian athletes hugged at the Winter Olympics
In 2021, the CIS CIS division of the CIS can be called the hegemon of CS:GO and Dota2 esports. CS: GO side Gambit took IEM Katowice, NAVI took IEM Cologne and Stockholm Major, while Dota 2 side Team Spirit won TI10 with Mammoth.
All three teams, without exception, come from the CIS division, a league of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other countries.
What helped CIS win the Grand Slam were multinational mixed teams of different nationalities, different faiths and different cultures, but the players were not at all divided by these problems, because they all had the only common goal, which was to win.
On domestic and foreign video websites, the in-team voice playback of the NAVI team is very high, and netizens have been relishing the mutual hatred and humor between the players.
Even in the official arena, they have never left such an easy state. At that time, neither the fans nor the players themselves ever cared about the possible accusations of nationality.
And when NAVI won its first Major title, Russia and Ukraine reached an unprecedented agreement, and they both wanted to put the honor on their side.
Ukrainian President Zelenskiy immediately tweeted: "For decades, our country's esports players have won countless championships and made a Ukrainian voice in the world, and yesterday was no exception." Ukrainian club NAVI won its first Major title in its history. This is an inspiring feat of success! ”
The other half, Dmitry Svishchey, a member of the Russian State Duma, also congratulated NAVI on its success, saying that the success of Russian e-sports is not accidental, the state's support for e-sports has been reflected, and even considering amending some laws to facilitate the development of the e-sports industry in the future.
Obviously, when winning the championship, everyone and even the president will feel that this honor is related to their own country and should have their own share; then when e-sports is forced to be disputed by the country, we also have to admit that this suffering should also have a share of e-sports.
Although s1mple shouted the phrase "e-sports has nothing to do with politics" in front of the whole world, you all know what happened next, and public opinion is punching him in the face again and again.
S1mple is currently working on apartments in Poland
Even he couldn't escape. On March 1, just four days after he appealed for anti-war, S1mple posted a screenshot of a donation on INS showing that he had donated about $33,000 to the Ukrainian military.
Some people think that he has betrayed his belief that "e-sports has nothing to do with politics", while others think that he is just showing his support for his country.
The ruthlessness of war is like this, although you desperately want to be alone, but in the end it is just a duckweed that goes with the flow.
The Fortnite pro game once had a young player who shocked the world Mony, who was only 18 years old and had already earned $40,000 in his career, but most importantly, he was born in Syria.
In war-devastated Syria, Mony spent all his childhood before the age of 12, experiencing power plant explosions, taking water once a week and living without the internet for 3 years.
Source watermark
He was still in school, and in the long, straight streets they had to run to dodge sniper bullets. The friend was fed up with the turtle's days and decided to try to walk slowly through the streets for the next week until one day, the sniper hit the friend's neck.
In such an environment, Mony's ability to become an esports pro is almost an inspirational and legendary story. But in the eyes of many people, the ending of this story is still tragic.
Image source Mony
Because the condition for him to realize his dream was to leave his hometown and immigrate to the United States to start a new life. But the homeland of the other half of the sea can never be returned, and the land where the sand and soil fly in the memory has not yet recovered from its grief.
"My family is still in Syria, and every time I think of them I think of those tragic memories that push me forward and push me to create a better future."
Lowering the mouse and taking off the jersey, these e-sports players are ordinary people like us. In the face of war, in fact, their choice is difficult to change the war situation.
Whether you choose to take up a gun and join the army, or choose to take to the streets to participate in anti-war demonstrations, it is a decision that must be made under the influence of the torrent of war.
Unfortunately, their actions are bound to affect other citizens who make different choices. Team Spirit put on the "PEACE" team uniform to compete, then the VP who chooses not to compromise is bound to be attacked for being indifferent to the situation.
"Is it hard to say that you don't support the war that took place in Ukraine?"
The war pushed them to the two ends of the balance beam, and then there was no right or wrong, the players had become clowns in the eyes of the spectators, trying to control the balance while inevitably floating up and down due to the other party's changes.
Standing outside the war, it may be difficult for us to understand the inevitability of these choices, but the helplessness and sorrow conveyed by them really infect us all.
We can't change the war, we can only be grateful that the distantness of the war makes us alone, and the e-sports players involved in the war can only pray that the explosion will only ring in CS:GO.
The VP team said at the end of the statement, "The beauty of esports is its diversity: people from different countries and pedigrees can play together under one hashtag, and regional affiliation can be measured only in terms of ping and time zone." ”
I still believe it.
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