If you haven’t been catching up with Dota 2 esports, a new drama just dropped between David “Parker” Nicho Flores and his team, HEROIC.
Here’s all you need to know about Parker’s dismissal from HEROIC, the allegations and his side of the story.
Parker Dota 2 (Image credit: PGL)
Parker x HEROIC Drama at ESL One Bangkok 2024
We haven’t gotten anything this spicy in competitive Dota 2 since the ATF beef drama several months ago. And frankly, it certainly made ATF’s toxic case look like child’s play.
For the uninitiated, the South American Dota 2 powerhouse, HEROIC announced that they are benching their carry player, Parker, after their qualifier match in ESL One Bangkok 2024. According to HEROIC’s official statement, their reason for benching Parker was because of ‘his unprofessional behavior, including previous incidents’ that they cannot accept. More on that later.
As such, the immediate decision to bench Parker and HEROIC will compete in the upcoming BLAST Slam I with Yuma “Yuma” Langlet instead.
Why did Parker get benched and kicked?
Essentially, Parker was deemed a toxic player and his alleged actions in one of his matches was the last straw for HEROIC. During their last round of the best-of-five series versus beastcoast, while his team was fighting a massive fight near the Roshan’s pit with multiple spent buybacks, Parker reportedly did not join his team. Instead, he simply went mid lane and hit creeps while his team got wiped out.
This eventually cost HEROIC the match and their qualification into ESL One Bangkok 2024.
Parker’s response to the allegations
With such severe allegations against Parker, he eventually posted what he called ‘disagreements’ he had with his team. Parker shared his various disagreements with multiple teammates in HEROIC, which includes poor drafting decisions and toxic slurs among one another.
Parker’s response (Image credit: Parker Dota 2)
To sum up the main points, he thinks that the HEROIC coach, Igor “kaffs” Estevão’s drafting decisions were terrible and has a big ego. Matheus “KJ” Santos Jungles Diniz can’t stop insulting and being toxic in general. While Cedric “Davai Lama” Deckmyn is just an under-performing player.
In hindsight, this list of disagreements came off as Parker potentially blaming his team for all the mishaps that their team has had, such as losing DreamLeague S24.
This certainly isn’t a good look for Parker and his other teammates’s future prospect as a pro player. However, perhaps there are some truths in the allegations, especially seeing that Davai Lama has been an underwhelming offlane player recently.
Did Parker throw the game?
As for the clip, where Parker decided to not join his team in the Roshan’s pit fight, Parker isn’t entirely wrong. At least from an execution perspective, participating in the Roshan’s Pit fight when three of HEROIC carry players already bought back, was (in retrospect) a bad call.
Instead of contesting for Aegis, HEROIC players should have perhaps just stayed for high-ground defense. A strategy that is very advantageous when you have a Medusa and Muerta on your team.
Unfortunately, HEROIC players’ over-zealousness to contest Roshan without considering their buyback status, greatly costed them the final round of ESL One Bangkok 2024 qualifiers. Yet, it seemed like it was Parker’s Medusa that decided to grief and not work with the rest of HEROIC.
Nevertheless, the whole incident and further drama among the HEROIC players now give the South American talents a bad reputation, despite their earlier success at PGL Wallachia S2. As for Parker, HEROIC stated that they are open for discussing on Parker’s transfer with interested teams.