Gity recently announced his retirement on Twitter, citing changes in his life preventing him from continuing. This comes off the back of a very successful 7 months and strong performances throughout his career, but no opportunity to perform at a Tier 1 level.
Gity was a part of every iteration of RealityTV, possibly the best Challenger League team in North America’s history, having not lost a match throughout all of Stage 3 and Playoffs of the 2022 CL season, dropping only a single map. More recently he led OrbitGG to a 2nd place SFCL finish despite a mid-season roster change and taking up IGLing duties. This is a player that rounds out teams and makes them better, even if he isn’t dropping super star numbers -something that his roles on RTV and Orbit should never demand in the first place. His impact as a core member of a team’s support structure and other intangibles are hard to over value, yet impossible to see on a stats sheet. Solid role players don’t come through T2 that often. The next star entry is easy easy to find and easy to replace but players with the traits like Gity are much rarer in general, and especially coming through as a young gun.
Despite the talent, results, and advocation of his teammates Gity did not get a shot at Tier 1. A player referred to as one of the best up and coming talents in T2 constantly overlooked. Ask most people what they thought of Gity and the response was “Potential Pro League material, he just needs a chance to prove it.” Instead, Gity ended up like the Red Skull, only able to lead teammates to a treasure he himself could not possess. His potential career sold away, used only as a testament of the problems closed leagues cause.
Where it an open circuit, Gity and all of RealityTV would have had a relegation match against an underperforming team like Beastcoast or Mirage to move into the NAL at the end of 2022, a very winnable match up for the hungry T2 team. Instead the RealityTV got picked apart by the T1 orgs whose position in the league were never at risk. These organizations are still looking at leaving Siege or have proven that they should be removed. Even without additional NAL exits the league is barebones at 8 teams compared to the 10 of the other major regions. Those other major regions also feature unsigned teams.
The NAL remains one of a few closed leagues in the circuit where no un-sponsored team can compete and it hurts the scene as a result of this refusal to change. Gity is just the most obvious example of a role player deserving a chance in a T1 game but not getting one, a martyr representing a whole slew of past and future players overlooked for the next dime a dozen fragger.