Episode 105: I HAD TO TAKE THE TURN

[@slips.]

Podcast released early AND there's timestamps we're being spoiled

[@slips.]

and they're actually talking counter (hltv frogs will love this)

[@koala-ytt]

1:08:15 YNK asking TOs to not make decisions based on financials, after saying FU to people who asked NiKo to not go to Falcons for the money 💰

[@jackoxford]

That's not what he's saying.....

[@zerotothe0ne]

YNK, Twistzz will NEVER go to Falcons. I am pretty sure he has EXPLICITLY said in a past interview he would never go there due to the link with SA and human rights stuff.

[@DaRkw1ngCS2]

+1

[@TrebWales]

He has what YNK at 15:14 calls a "moral standing that's ridiculous" :)

[@ismayonez6865]

​@@TrebWalesThat's just straight up misquoting what he said... His point was that fans are being ridiculous when they say that Niko shouldn't care about how much money he makes.

[@elizabethmurigi1131]

I'm curious to know if Twistzz plays on FACEIT. Or if he goes to ESL run tournaments and accepts "Saudi blood money" prize money. This moral stuff shouldn't be selective

[@tejmazwei]

​@@elizabethmurigi1131 Conpletely agree, its a bunch of bullshit

[@zerotothe0ne]

So, clearly YNK has talked to Niko about SA money. While I agree with YNK likely position of “who cares what the fans think, if you want to get paid and think team X has the best chance of winning a major, then fucking do it”, I do think pros have an OPPORTUNITY to stand for or against something IF THEY WANT TO. I won’t give shit to players who go for the bag. It’s when that player actively complains about losing fans or they complain about the consequences of making that decision that irks me. (Like I think there was a golfer who left PGA to go to the SA funded league, and then started complaining about losing fans for switching etc).

[@15lp15]

@@JHall2512 Stupid comparesion. People played Faceit and watched ELS before the Saudis stepped in and they are not getting paid for sportswashing. Niko actively decided to join a Saudi owned (not just funded) team that has nothing to bring to the table besides a huge bag of money. He could literally join every other team with more major winning potential and still takes the bigger paycheck. Players/Fans are not choosing money over moral by playing/watching the game.

[@JHall2512]

@@15lp15 I'm not making a comparison and neither am i justifying a pro players choice of getting the saudi bag. I'm calling out the vocal fans who are taking a moral high ground but at the same time supporting Faceit who is also owned and not just funded by SA. So, if you are vocally taking a moral high ground and publically calling players out for playing for an SA-owned team then you are by your own standards also choosing convenience over moral by paying and playing Faceit. Faceit and ESL was bought by Savvy Gaming Group which is 100% owned by Saudi Arabia's government and the investment was literally part of the country's campaign to build up Saudi Arabia's presence in the global games industry. I think we can both agree that the SA politics is unethical and the scene would be better off without it.

[@jangsta23]

yangco tryna trash talk pgl cause he knows he'll never be able to work for them 😂 🧂

[@gm0neyx]

36:18 Janko referring to disbanded FaZe as the Piper Perri meme is crazy. 😂

[@Limcacs]

I could smell the YNK bias without listening

[@ernad395]

Exactly. He doesn't even try to hide it anymore. The serb brothers standing up for each other i guess

[@Aegon23]

I love hearing Ynk talk as if he does not know what is going on, lel.

[@rfga]

@25:00 'why would niko accept a pay cut' because aside from state backed orgs like falcons that don't have to work like actual companies, the golden age of esports is over and a contraction is coming/already underway. without vc money buffering up all of the orgs, they have to generate the player salaries from their own revenues, which, turns out, isn't enough to pay professional gamers several tens of thousands of euros per month

[@flowerDance2112]

yeah thats what he meant. its not about g2 "allegedly" pay cut niko's salary, its about why should he accept the pay cut when he can get a better deal at falcons. falcons can pay it while also possibly build a good team around him through his, end of peak stages (2-3 years) of his career while he has also said he will igl after that. it means he can be a gem to build around for the next 7-ish years, considering he will be a good igl. whereas g2 havent really helped him with the roster management with players around him for the most part like ynk said.

[@rfga]

@@flowerDance2112 yeah sure, these are all legitimate reasons from niko's side. at the timestamp i quoted though yanko is arguing about g2's side in a cadence of 'how dare you!!!', citing niko's ingame performance etc. all of that doesn't matter, because niko is very, very likely not bringing in the money they (used to) pay him (and this is likely true for most pro cs players outside of the betting site pet teams), his salary until now was premised on the esports dream coming true (huge growth, mainstream adoption etc.), which it didn't. there's likely an element of opportunism in cutting his salary, sure, but overall it's most likely due to the state of the scene in general, not because g2 wants to fuck over niko despite his great performance, as yanko implies

[@flowerDance2112]

@@rfga yeah i guess if g2's financials are not going well, then his questioning of g2 wouldnt really hold up

[@charlie-horse]

Just in time for my drive, thanks boys

[@topdogjacky2437]

Ynk is the king of talking over people yeesh

[@Borbiiii]

5:40 they were polish casters, not german, it was izak and hermes in the lanxess

[@rohankhanna5651]

1:28:15 Why was Chad lambasted for the year? Who is the guy who didn't like him?

[@evolvedHE]

I suspect he was referring to Richard Lewis who was calling SPUNJ a bag chaser (since he worked lots of ESL events) Came up with stupid nicknames like Sir Chad Baggington and his community took it to mean he was sucking up to the Saudi’s for money I could be completely wrong here but that’s what comes to mind. I also heard Richard apologise for it post-Copenhagen major

[@MyFluXx]

@@evolvedHE I think there was an issue with the disclosure of funding for this podcast as well? ESL paid for 5 episodes or something like that and they didn't publicise it.

[@evolvedHE]

@@MyFluXx yes, that too

[@everything-has-a-handle-now]

Does spunj join the discord to record and then instantly leave? xd

[@ronnybaby1092]

i like the new thumbnails bros 👍

[@Flvtevoa]

I think Valve will be tweaking the RMR / Circuit more often as I imagine they will attempt to apply a similar system to Deadlock when that becomes competitive, so they would want to iron out the issues as much as possible.

[@Gr1ff1n_]

I know it's saudi money, I know, but also I'm like a huge Magisk stan so the possibility of a superteam built around him is nice to consider, even if the odds of it happening are magical christmasland odds lmao

[@SmokeyCS]

Unfortunate news for Tier 2 scene

[@cloroxbleach849]

SCREAM IF YOU LOVE TALKING COUNTER, RAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[@MorizonPlays]

early podcast Pog i hope Jason talks about the nip amkal rematch

[@skittlesindadum1625]

Jasons rant on Ecig, that was needed.

[@DaRkw1ngCS2]

Twistzz has stated clearly that he would NEVER play for a Saudi backed team.

[@elizabethmurigi1131]

But he plays ESL run tournaments and takes the prize money. How are those things different?

[@C418isgood]

@@elizabethmurigi1131Degrees of separation.

[@elizabethmurigi1131]

@@C418isgood if we go by that logic ESL is directly owned and funded by the Saudi government. SGG is owned by the PIF. Team Falcons aren't directly tied to the government.

[@DaRkw1ngCS2]

@@elizabethmurigi1131 it's one thing to win prize money that is inevitably going to be saudi money.. but that is the case for everyone. and another to take REGULAR paychecks from them.. either you are really short sighted or you are trolling. cant tell

[@krypt1ccc739]

​@elizabethmurigi1131 Yeah, they're owned by a really rich ex fifa player of course.

[@luckstur]

🔥

[@hazyipa]

I feel like moses's points are always met with a "yeah, i see what you mean, but" Like, there's not a lot of camaraderie, you know what I mean? The guy really has to fight to be heard

[@joseblua6566]

Tbf Moses’ points always stand out to me as the worst arguments in the podcast, so I think the guys just don’t quite agree with him a lot, but they say the whole “I see what you mean” as a way to not straight up tell him his takes are bad.

[@madhalf7059]

"because a guy didn't like me" what an ignorant thing to say.

[@johny153]

Man wtf is ynk talking about the Niko to falcon situation. You wanna tell me that for ex. Siuhy, xertion and jimmy wouldnt jump on the chance to play with monesy and malbs and for double the money they have in Mouz? No offence to Brollan and torzsi but monesy and malbs are next level, G2 is much more visible organization where you can grow your popularity and you get paid much better. Plus you could say the same arguments he uses for Niko to Falcons and use them for Mouz players to G2.

[@asyl1m293]

should be renamed to Talking G2

[@Ansee7]

Scream if you love talking counter RAAAAHHHHH

[@BucketheadCS]

Me when the talking counter

[@offmana]

So how about a skit one day with you guys where one of you is person is describing a game. The names of the players are, Banana, Long, Window, Ramp and Molly. Whos on first?

[@offmana]

or maybe crouch, awp, short, fast and killed

[@A.Meier999]

Real question guys: I now read like 2-3 times, that simple wants to come back and can’t because navi has a strong team and doesn’t need him. I understand that and actually I don’t think he would be a good asset for them. But why don’t they just sell him? Is there no team who wants him (because he has no real experience in cs2)? I don’t know where to ask this, so I posted it here sorry.

[@elizabethmurigi1131]

His buyout is too high.

[@flowerDance2112]

I think they discussed it in the past episodes that: with s1mple's buyout being too high and his reputation as being a toxic player, add in the fact that he has no real team experience in cs2, apart from one online game with falcons, you dont have any data. In his play like s1mple course, he reviewed the mirage game he played with falcons. He failed market window jump on b site and was 1 second late. The plan was to boost himself with the help of snappi on default box. Snappi hears b rush and uncrouches, s1mple cant make the boost in time and blames snappi, while it his fault. His argument was because snappi apologized, s1mple was right. One of the toxic traits you have to deal with when he is in your team. Now if he was as skilled as in csgo, most of the players will not mind the toxic trait because of his skill but if a team decides to pay the buyout, you will get guaranteed toxicity with unknown skill in cs2 which is a risk no teams seem to be willing to take right now

[@ernad395]

I'm so happy to see everyone sees how fucked up YNk's commentary is in these episodes. The guy does not know what the fuck he is talking about half the time. This podcast would be 100x better if they just unplugged the dudes mic

[@Wet-Toast-Wobblers]

Commenting before listening to chime in but has anyone thought about s1mple to G2 for niko? Trash take but contracts do line up….

[@smoothbrain_cs]

🗑️

[@TomahawkDan]

rah

[@jangsta23]

7:12 , im sure you know alot about not being able to convey or feel emotion during a casting moses, youll be fine 🙄

[@CoachTheGOAT1]

[@dofstudio9978]

G2 should go balls deep and get magisk and snappi from Falcons -hunter -snax