In a cry for help and support for his team, David "MoonMeander" Tan recently posted a TwitLonger. With an elaborate explanation, the soft support of Team Undying revealed that the lack of a proper sponsor is not only hurting the team but also hampering their preparations for The International(TI) 10.
TI10 is set to feature the highest prize pool in the history of esports with more than $40 million on the line. Unfortunately, despite the massive prize pool on offer, Team Undying, who managed to qualify via the North American regional qualifiers finds themselves in a spot of bother.
This has caused the North American team to start a fundraiser on GoFundMe to raise the required amount of money for a simple Bootcamp before TI10.
Here's what MoonMeander had to say in his TwitLonger post.
Team Undying starts fundraiser for a Bootcamp
MoonMeander started off his explanation with a story of what the entire journey has been like for Team Undying. From playing with a high ping to missing out on a spot for the Major, the entire journey has been filled with uphill battles for the North American roster.
MoonMeander explains,
"Unlike other teams, we don't have a sponsor, so we can't just fly our high ping players in to NA to Bootcamp for major qualifiers. We had to work with what we got, the highest luxury we had was that our discord server was nitroboosted, which mean we could stream our Dota in HD, to go through replays as a team. I had to tell our manager, before he worked for us, that I couldn't get him paid until we got an organization, he was fine with it. After months of not having an organization, the boys chipped in and we all sent him some money, on top of him having a prizepool cut, just so he would get paid. Despite all the disadvantages, we went ahead and tried our best for the majors."
He even went on to explain the situation of the team after they failed to qualify for the WePlay AniMajor 2021. He said,
"We carried this, alongside watching countless hours of discord streams, ping issues, no Bootcamp, no org, no sponsor, we qualified to TI10. 5 years since my last TI, after playing in 3 regions, multiple kicks, multiple backstabs, definitely the roughest patch of my life, made it to TI."
However, despite making it all the way to TI10, Team Undying is still without a Bootcamp. Needless to say, a Bootcamp is one of the basic necessities for any esports organization. Given that Team Undying does not even have access to that, MoonMeander's decision to start a fundraiser seems like the only viable option for the team.
Here's what MoonMeander had to say about it,
"All I want is to give my boys, some first time TI attendees, the best chance they can get to prove themselves. I want them to be unshackled by ping, to be able to finally see each other in person, scrim together, eat together, have fun together. These boys have stuck with me, through thick and thin, to get here, loyal to the end, and it would break my heart if they don't get the same chance as premium organizations do, to compete at TI10. We don't need a chef, we don't need a masseuse, we don't need first class tickets, we just need a bootcamp."
Having said that, we truly hope that Team Undying is able to raise the required amount of funds to set up their Bootcamp and prepare for TI10.