Bargain of the century: Luminosity heists Monte’s core

Today, Luminosity Gaming (LG), the organization with which the SK-core won their first Major, has returned to CS.

They signed four of Monte’s five players, leaving only Gizmy, who seems likely to join 100 Thieves at this time. In his place, lux, Legacy’s former IGL, will take the reins. Which is a very odd choice for Luminosity; they signed a team praised for its IGLing and then left the IGL.

Not to say lux isn’t good; it’s just a bit like buying a car without an engine.

Yet that’s not the part of the story that I want to highlight. Instead, I’d like to direct your attention to the financial aspects of this deal. According to reports, Luminosity signed three of Monte’s players, their core, for free, and only negotiated for Rainwaker.

Think about that for a minute: Luminosity signed the #18-placed VRS core for free.

They got this done because Monte’s players had their contracts expiring soon, with an attempt at renegotiating before the Major. LG swooped in at the same time and poached their players. Gizmy confirmed on Twitter that the contracts were signed before the Major and that he only found out after.

BC.Game allegedly paid $2.5m for SAW’s core due to its VRS implications. That core was placed 21st in the VRS rankings at the time of its purchase. Monte’s core is 18th, and they got them for free.

In fairness, the odds are pretty high that LG is paying the guys more than Monte would have, and that's not quite free.

It’s just not $2.5m either.

The discourse around this deal has already gotten quite polarized because of the personal drama involved. But it’s almost irrelevant as soon as the dust has settled here. What will be left is Luminosity being invited to Tier 1.5 events, and if they maintain their level, the Major.

On Monte’s end, this is an unmitigated disaster.

There has to be a massive amount of internal introspection. How do you prevent something like this from happening again? Should they have renegotiated earlier, or did they need the reassurance that the sticker money was confirmed before they could do so?

This needs to be seen as a cautionary tale; any organization that thinks it's got it made because its team is getting invites should start checking its mirrors.