Daxak explains why he left HellRaisers and tells about his time in the team
Former HellRaisers carry Nikita ‘Daxak‘ Kuzmin published an open letter where he described the details of the conflict with the team’s coach Alexander ‘nofear‘ Churochkin and explained his exclusion from the roster.
Daxak said that after The International 2022, he auditioned for the role of a third position player in TSM, but in the end, he was left with the option of moving to HR. According to him, this decision was risky even taking into account his reputation, since at the beginning of the season the team was one of the main contenders for relegation to the second division. Friends warned him about this.
«I was tested in TSM for a number three pisition, but they did not pick me. In addition, I had a couple of subpar offers that I didn’t even consider. I found myself in a situation: either go to HR or go nowhere,» Daxak told about the situation in the offseason.
Before the transfer to HellRaisers, Kuzmin decided to immediately discuss those moments that could later become a problem for him and the team.
«At the very beginning, I said that I was not a driven person. Therefore, before coming to HR, I told very clearly who I am, how I want to work and what we need to do, if do not want to repeat past mistakes. Everyone agreed with this. I also said that I have certain social problems, and I try to work with them. I honestly painted my pros and cons – it suited everyone,» Daxak said.
According to Nikita, he did a huge amount of work, helping not only the players, but also the team coach to cope with their duties. He did this to take this «raw» team to The Lima Major 2023. The esportsman is very proud of the result he managed to achieve.
«Sasha (nofear – Ed.) is a person who is not very responsible for his words. He said that he does everything, he will do this and that: «The team is not raw, you just need to relax and play.» Of course, it was absolutely not so. Almost all my problems were with nofear. Sasha had no general understanding of the game, so I worked with him a lot. At the same time, he completely agreed with this: «I had no one to learn from. Sorry, I’m not so good at this»», he quotes the words of the team coach.
According to Daxak, nofear set himself 5-10 tasks and did not complete any of them. The coach neglected his duties, so Nikita had to partially do the work of a coach instead of him, sometimes teaching the coach himself.
«In my understanding, this person is a s*cker. At first he said one thing, and then instead of working he did some sh*t. He claimed: «I am a psychologist and I understand the game.» You start explaining to him that he is wrong, he agrees and thanks you. After a couple days everything is forgotten, and he begins to promote his ideas in such a manner as if he is absolutely right,» the cybersportsman tells.
The training process itself looked chaotic. The team played practice matches with other teams just for the sake of playing them. Drafts were often made up on the fly. Daxak has highlighted this several times.
«I’m not a person who just tells bad things about others, so I’ll say that in the end, Sanya’s general understanding of Dota became much better. He also began to talk better, but not in the way I would like. After couple of practice matches Solo completely moved away from the drafts, and Sanya took over this responsibility. I think he did a good job with it,» Daxak said.
By the time Daxak was expelled from HR, Nikita had a lot of questions about the team, and nofear changed his attitude towards him. According to Daxak, earlier the coach praised him and said that he learned a lot from him, and in the end nofear called him a bad player who does nothing. Therefore, Daxak gave the management an ultimatum: either him or nofear.
The e-sportsman learned that he was being excluded from the roster from the CEO of the organization. None of the players in the squad told him anything about it. Daxak believes that this is their right and refers to the fact that, most likely, they tried to have a conversation with him on this topic, but he refused, and his answer was perceived incorrectly.
«If I kept silent about the problems and just endured all this horror, I would calmly go to the major with HR. Nobody would say a word to me, but why should I? For me, this is a loss of nerves and time. What will be the result there? My nerves are more expensive than a trip with HR to a Major,» Nikita summed up.
Recall that Hellraisers with Daxak took third place in the DPC 2023 Tour 1 for Eastern Europe and qualified for The Lima Major 2023 in Peru. Including the penalty after the player was removed from the roster, the team earned 96 DPC points and $27,000.
As CyberScore reported, the Eastern European Dota 2 community made a disappointing prediction about the future of Daxak in his native region.