Sup guys! As some of you may know I left Fray yesterday and since I've been with the team for the entire lifespan I thought I'd write something up to explain my decision.
But first I want to say that my experience with Chadmann, Fray and before that Carnage has been amazing. I remember when Chad messaged me in SC2, almost 2 years ago now(?) asking me if I wanted to join Carnage at the recommendation of EdgE. I was pretty surprised, as I had only just started my journey into esports but Edge and Chad believed in me from the get go. I was super excited when this happened, my goal was to join a pro team and getting onto such a strong team so early after starting out was crazy!
I told all of my friends ASAP, I was super excited for my free gear, the flights to events, my teammates and everything else that came with being on a solid team. The Carnage days were the best. A lot of people came and went, as they do with eSports but we managed to fill the spaces with Ninja and HuT - 2 people I was already good friends with. Chad then got an offer to merge with Frenetic Array, a much bigger organization than Carnage with a lot more funding. He talked with me about it and we decided to go for it - it was a pretty big decision since Carnage was gonna be left for dead basically if we decided to move over.
Early on Fray gave Chad a lot of freedom with finances which allowed him to send Petraeus to France and to Australia for all the ACL events - even though it was extremely expensive. Oh, also I'm proud of picking up Petraeus... Most of the team disliked Petraeus before joining but I was the one who really saw the potential in him and Chad agreed with me - this was at a time when Petraeus was considered BM for whatever reasons and he wasn't at the super high skill level that he is at right now. I loved being on a team with Petraeus and Ninja, mah Zerg buddies. Also everyone else that was active made for a really alive chat environemnt every night too - me, iaguz, HuT, Ninja and Petraeus would be talking pretty much everynight about GSL, or just funny completely unrelated subjects which made the team a joy to be on. This is the main reason I stuck around really. Great people!
I've always wanted to go solo, I'm the kinda guy who likes to do things himself. I'm not the best at working with other people - or if I want to work with other people it needs to be with a very specific kind of person. If I'm representing an organization it needs to be with people that I respect, get along with an I'm friendly with.
Fray lost a lot of it players in a short duration, not because Fray was doing things wrong but just because people moved on. Ninja, HuT (and fourby) became very inactive as they wanted to do other things. Ninja eventually left. Then with the only active people left being Guz and Petraeus, when they left for ROOT I was basically the only person left on the team.
I had talked with Chad a lot before about leaving Fray and going solo, so that I can seek out my own opportunities and can focus on my own brand rather than trying to grow my own brand whilst also trying to give Fray all the exposure I could at the same time. I guess the best way to look at it is that I'm trying to posture myself to become more like team Grubby. Grow my own brand, secure my own sponsorship's etc. etc. I really like the idea of building something myself from the ground up! Chad knew all about this for a long time but managed to convince me to stick around for a long time. Chad treat me like a king, always hooking me up with flights and accommodation to events even though I'm not one of the highest performing players and probably don't have a realistic chance of winning any event that he sent me to.
Anyway I'm kinda rambling, putting down my thoughts on to a page is harder than I thought.
Basically I want to fly solo for a while, see what opportunities are out there for me and grow my own brand. Carnage -> Frenetic Array was an amazing experience for the last 2 years and I have made great friends throughout that time!
Chadmann is a boss and if he continues on with Fray I hope him all the best, we are still good friends.
Miles is a boss, even came running to the recent LAN with a shirt since I forgot mine
Petraeus is awesome and I hope he can achieve his goals, I also think he is the foreigner with the most potential right now (although he hates me saying this for some reason)
Ninja, Iaguz, EdgE, Fourby, HuT, dippa have all been great friends/teammates and everyone previously on carnage that I had fun with were also great - there is basically no one I've had bad experiences with.
This is now sounding like a retirement post o r something LOL. I'm not going anywhere, I love SC2 and I'm going to be working hard on increasing my own skill level whilst growing my brand.
That's awesome man , all the best with focusing on developing your own individual brand. I definitely think that you are one of the players who can make it work!
I told all of my friends ASAP, I was super excited for my free gear,
This would be me 100%, except I would rub it in their faces
I would say best of luck wherever you go, but that's pretty generic and boring. So instead I'll say wherever you go, best of luck! You're my favourite player so keep on doing what you're doing and contributing to the community, definitely deserve more exposure not just as a player, but also as a personality.
Hope to continue seeing great things from you in the future and that you achieve the goals you set out to reach going solo!
Glad to see it wasn't due to fray dying completely or something, from the outside it's always seemed like a well-respected and managed organisation. Also makes sense for you to have a crack at your own brand, and recognising where many of your strengths lie. Hopefully we can see more content on your youtube page and stuff like that in addition to your streaming etc. Best of luck!
Thanks so much for working with me in fray and carnage. Ive really enjoyed our time together and hope to see you again soon. Ill write something more when im not writing on a phone. Much love and best of luck in the future! xoxo
OneLove
All the best with your currently-flying-solo thing! Really hope your stream will start to pick up more viewers now that you have some cool schedule for the week! Hope you get picked up by the right team when the right time comes
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