Man, and we really thought JUGi was being signed for Astralis because everything was hunky-dory over there.
It turns out behind the smiling mask of being the best team in the world, was the crying face of an overworked and underpaid group of human beings. It's easy to forget that behind the identikit 'beings' that populate our wonderful servers, there are people, and those people are just like us.
Richard Lewis outlined everything you need to know about Astralis' burnout story - and it's fair to say you'll come out from it having much less respect for the business behind the impressive quintet who won everything. It's a long, but superb, read - but remember that we only get one side of the true story.
He essentially suggests that the Astralis players have been burnt out since the end of last year and the Astralis management told them sweet nothings about their vague 'plans' to help ease burnout, only to bring them back too early after the player break.
The team were already reportedly unhappy at being forced to play BLAST Pro Series' (almost as unhappy as aizyesque was to have watched them) and felt they were being disregarded. With help of controversial Danish unionist Mads Øland, they forced the team to give them a break.
Of course, Astralis tried to pass this off as a positive, that they were doing everything they could to help their team by testing a 6/10/400 man roster, and that es3tag, JUGi and Snappi weren't just cheap and inferior options. Some people - the average Astralis fan - bought it, but most of us were wise.
Oh, and while they were burnt out and unhappy at having to play crap tournaments, they were asked to take a pay cut, which the players in the organisation thought wasn't even necessary.
It's like if you're topfragging, but one of your teammates baits you then demands you drop him an AWP in the next round. All while making sure you gain less ELO for the win.
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