(1) We want to address the situation properly, because a lot of accusations started from misunderstandings and incomplete information.
About a year ago, while we were playing in ESC, we received an offer from FOKUS that was financially much better for us, together with the opportunity to work with kuben — a legendary coach on the Polish CS scene. At that moment, we truly believed it was a huge opportunity for our team and a chance to become a real Tier 1 project. Back then we were around top 37 in VRS, winning most of our matches, and naturally we wanted to take the next step in our careers.
FOKUS initially did not want to officially announce us, which is why we played under the name “Friendly Campers” (FC = FOKUS Clan). We tried our best to make the project work, but unfortunately the expectations between players, coach, and organization did not align. We started losing matches, pressure increased, and tensions inside the team grew stronger over time. The organization wanted roster changes because they believed the project would not work in its current form, but we as players wanted to continue together because we still believed in our potential as a full lineup.
Eventually, two of our players were benched. After that, the remaining three players also moved to the bench, and the entire roster was effectively inactive. During that period, we were left without clear communication about our future. We could not practice properly because we were unable to participate in tournaments, and after some time the organization mentioned the possibility of creating an academy project for us — something that ultimately never happened. Instead, our contracts simply continued while we received no real information about what was next, and we had no possibility of terminating them ourselves.
Because of this situation, our VRS ranking dropped heavily without us even having the opportunity to play official matches. Finally, around mid-February, the organization decided to terminate our contracts, and February was the last month we were paid.
At that point ESC contacted us again regarding a possible return. However, we already knew ESC had lost sponsors after our departure the previous year. We entered discussions and negotiations, went to a bootcamp together, practiced hard, and tried to prove ourselves again because we knew sponsors would only support us if we showed strong results. At that time we were already around top 100 VRS, so finding sponsors was not easy.
The bootcamp itself actually went very well. We were winning most of our practice games and felt we were improving again. Then an opportunity appeared to attend a LAN event in Portugal to showcase ourselves and hopefully attract sponsors. It is important to clarify: at this point we were NOT officially signed to ESC and had NO contracts with them.
Unfortunately, the LAN in Portugal did not go well for us. We lost to G2 — not by massive score differences, mostly due to our own mistakes — and we were eliminated early. After returning from Portugal, we had a team discussion with ESC about the sponsorship situation. Because sponsors could not be secured, ESC simply could not offer salaries or contracts. We understood their decision completely.
So from the moment our FOKUS contracts ended, we were not tied to any organization and we were not receiving salaries from anyone.
After that, we decided to continue under the name “Walczaki,” searching for organizations and sponsors on our own while trying to rebuild our VRS position. We practiced constantly because we wanted to prove that we are still talented players with potential, and that the difficult situation of the previous months had simply damaged us mentally and competitively.
We worked on expanding our map pool because previously maps outside of Nuke, Ancient, and Anubis were often weaknesses for us. We accepted every tournament invitation possible, organized practice ourselves, and focused on improving as a team again.