NEWARK, NJ – JUNE 23: Scrub Killa being interviewed onstage by Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez at Rocket … [+]
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In an incredibly surprising turn of events, esports organization Mousesports announced that Scrub Killa’s “wish to part ways” with their Rocket League squad has been granted, effective immediately.
The Rocket League Championship Series Season 7 MVP will be replaced by the team’s substitute, Arju, for the two remaining matches in the regular season and for the European Regional Championship.
Fans initially hoped the announcement was an early April Fool’s joke, but Mousesports coach Lethamyr confirmed that it was genuine.
The timing of the move is quite perplexing for quite a few reasons. The biggest of which is that the Mousesports squad performed well enough to secure themselves a spot in the European Regional Championship, which guarantees the team a shot at this season’s massive regional prize pool. Because Scrub Killa asked to leave the squad right before the tournament, I assume that he forfeits much (if not all) of his share of the prize money.
Scrub Killa celebrates at the RLCS 7 World Championship
Psyonix
Others speculated that the young superstar would make a shift to full-time content creation, as the continuous grind to compete could be conflicting with his education. Scrub Killa is very successful on Twitch, and has recently been much more active on his YouTube channel. However, this wouldn’t explain the shocking timing of his departure.
In the end, the move seems to be based around troubles with the esports superstar’s contract with Mousesports. Fans have been speculating about contract disputes since the beginning of the season—Mousesports only officially confirmed that Scrub Killa was joining the squad with less than 24 hours before their first match.
None of these grievances have been aired on Twitter, though Lethamyr, the squad’s coach, provided some context on his Twitch stream immediately following Scrub’s departure:
“We were all aware that there was issues that Scrub had with the contract, but basically I think Scrub wanted to be self-employed. Mousesports wanted to give him an employment contract, but I believe Scrub’s intentions were that he would be taxed less on being self-employed.
“Basically, Mousesports were trying to do it by the books the right way, and Scrub didn’t like that. And Scrub didn’t like that they had in the contract that – they didn’t have ownership of his Twitch and YouTube – but their name was under and over his Twitch and YouTube, which is the right way to do it.
“It doesn’t make any sense at the end of the day, and I don’t know why he did it two weeks before the regional.”
Later, Lethamyr suggests that Scrub Killa didn’t react well to his teammates after bad losses, and even states that the team was planning on dropping him at the end of the season regardless: “We didn’t feel he was fitting very well, and we were going to make a change anyway. So at the end of the day it kinda worked out.”
Scrub Killa has yet to make a statement about why he decide to withdraw from the team, but assured Rocket League esports fans in a tweet that he’s “still extremely motivated to win RLCS again” and that they can expect to see him again soon. I have reached out to Scrub Killa for comments, and will update this story if necessary.
