Professional Call of Duty player Michael ‘SpaceLy’ Schmale has finally opened up about his up-and-down experience with Gen.G, blaming teammate Jared ‘Nagafen’ Harrell for being the reason why he was demoted from the team.
To call SpaceLy’s season with Gen.G disappointing would probably be an understatement, considering that he was dropped from the team twice over the past six months.
The first came before CWL Fort Worth, following their 6-1 run in the CWL Pro League, when he was demoted to the substitute’s role in favor of Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon.
He was then briefly promoted back to the main squad for the final week of the Pro League, but was then inexplicably dropped again ahead of the Playoffs at CWL Finals.
As a result, the longtime competitor will finish the season having appeared at only one of six major tournaments with Gen.G, and will compete at the upcoming CWL Championship as a member of Mazer Gaming.
Appearing on the August 3 episode of Crowder Hours, a CoD podcast hosted by 100 Thieves coach James Crowder, SpaceLy gave his side of the story about what he’s had to experience over the past few months.
SpaceLy’s first demotion
In the podcast, SpaceLy revealed that leading up to when he was dropped for the first time, both he and Nagafen knew that one of them two was going to be replaced in the next roster change period.
He then claimed that an “insecure” Nagafen did everything he could to try and keep his spot, which apparently included him going behind SpaceLy’s back to point out any bad plays he would make to the rest of the team.
“The whole time of me being on Gen.G with Nagafen, it just felt like he was always out to get me,” he said. “In my eyes, the reason it got pushed forward to me getting dropped in the first place for Envoy was because he was insecure it was either me or him to go.”
SpaceLy gets dropped again
SpaceLy was brought back into the fold to replace Nagafen ahead of the final week of the CWL Pro League regular season, and the team put on a very strong run to finish 4-0.
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However, just when everyone looked at Gen.G as a well-oiled machine firing on full cylinders, they decided to reverse the switch and brought back Nagafen, which caused a lot of uproar and negative backlash from many in the CoD community.
According to SpaceLy, when he was asked to come back on board, he was under the impression that it would be for the remainder of the season, which clearly did not end up being the case.
“It felt like something was going on already, for sure, and I didn’t understand why. “So then, we get back from the League, and they just me up – ‘yo, it’s nothing against you, you did nothing wrong, but we just feel like we have a better system with Naga.’ I was lost for words; I just laughed at them.”
The discussion on this topic begins at the 1:00:00 mark of the video below:
SpaceLy and his Mazer Gaming squad have been placed in Pool C of the $2 million CWL Championship, slated to face off against FaZe Clan, Units, and Team Divinely.
Gen.G, meanwhile, are the top-seeded team in Pool B, and will be playing Enigma6 Group, Team War, and Fuego Gaming.
- Read More: Pools announced for CWL Champs
The group stage of the competition will be taking place August 14-15, which will not be open to the public, followed by the knockout stage on August 16-18.