Fortnite team kicked out of $ 3 million tournament on tweet

The Fortnite Championship Series is a big deal for professionals who participate in Epic Games’ Battle Royale game – not only are millions of dollars at stake, but participation guarantees at least some cash for participants. Unless you are disqualified from the procedure. A team discovered this the hard way.

On Sunday, FNCS competitor Wrigley posted a misguided tweet that read, “Like literally fucking k! Ll your $ elf @donaldmustard, ”tagging Epic Games Creative Director Donald Mustard. Their entire Twitter account is gone now, but in response, Epic Games berated Wrigley, disqualifying him from the tournament.

His teammates were also caught in the crossfire. Wrigley was part of a trio, which included Fortnite pros that go through the Dictate and Userz handles. The duo say they have nothing to do with Wrigley’s initial explosion, but they can no longer participate in the tournament and are not allowed to find a replacement for the offending team member.

Contacted for comment, a representative from Epic Games directed Polygon to the company’s community rules, which clearly state that “to interact with others in a predatory, threatening, intimidating, obscene, humiliating, derogatory, intrusive manner to the community. privacy or abuse ”is all prohibited. Failure to follow these guidelines may be grounds for prohibition or any other sanction deemed appropriate by Epic Games.

In a private message to Polygon, Userz shared the screenshot that greeted him after the game loaded.

Image: Epic Games via Userz

According to Userz, Wrigley’s tweet was the result of anger after being sniped in the first game of the Grand Final. He also claims the duo only knew about the tweet the next day, when it had already been deleted. Since then there has been a radio silence from Wrigley – but the biggest Fortnite community rally around the team. While no one seems to support Wrigley’s original tweet, some fans believe it was unfair to ban the entire team. Userz estimates that over the past two months, he had been “crushing” practice time up to 12 hours a day in anticipation of the big event.

“The prize pool and everything was very motivating for me,” he said. After qualifying he said he started to grind “even harder”.

On Twitter, Userz put pressure on the fans to contact Epic Games about the decision, noting that he and his teammate had dedicated “endless time” to the game for a “life-changing money” chance. Rather than having it all down the drain, he said, the team would have liked the opportunity to pick a replacement for Wrigley.

“I’ll be honest,” Dictate wrote on Twitter, “I was laughing a bit yesterday when I got the email, but now I want to cry.” The teenager added that he wasn’t sure if he was going to eat that week as he was counting on tournament money.

“I really don’t understand why my teammate and I, who have nothing to do with our other teammate’s comment, don’t get our $ 600 prize money?” Dictate told Polygon on Twitter about what the payout would have been if the team had been placed last. “We didn’t cheat to get to the grand finale, so it doesn’t make sense that our guaranteed prize was taken away completely.”

Wrigley has apparently promised his teammates compensation due to the disqualification, but in the meantime, others intervene to send money to the duo.