As the group stage finished at StarSeries i-League Season 8, attention turned to the small drama amid all the action in Belek caused by the staff. This time, it’s not a question of poor observing: rather, the fact that one of the admins apparently described their observations of the inner workings and power dynamics of Na’Vi.

Though the original comments have been deleted, translations quickly emerged and the conversation about the matter is currently on the frontpage of the /globaloffensive/ subreddit. (Something something Streisand Effect.) Supposedly, s1mple’s raging because of his teammates’ subpar performances, GuardiaN is tilted off the earth and B1ad3, the coach used a timeout to tell Boombl4, the team’s new in-game leader, to “start being a captain”.

Needless to say, behavior like this is a pretty big no-no and is heavily governed by NDAs and the like – and in fact, the referee in question has deleted his Telegram account in reaction to the backlash. It will be interesting to see whether StarSeries will make any kind of official reaction to the matter, especially in light of how they (didn’t) handle the DMCA controversy at the major.

Though it’s tough to figure out how accurate this is of the wider situation in Na’Vi, results have certainly not been up to expectations since the roster change, and the same holds true for GuardiaN’s individual performances. If the situation behind the scenes is this toxic, it’s a pretty bad sign – especially now that s1mple’s no longer capable of single-handedly dragging them into the finals. The CIS side failed to make it out of the groups at StarSeries i-League Season 8, losing to G2 and Heroic, only winning one map in the process.