Thomas interview: 5W scam, ITB lessons and his future

The British player reflects on a turbulent period of his career as he looks for a new challenge.

Thomas "⁠Thomas⁠" Utting finds himself on the open market in the middle of the player break following the shock disbandment of 5W. The team unilaterally cut ties with the Indian organization, accusing it of "scamming" the players and withdrawing all communication with the squad without explanation.

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5W lineup sever ties with organization: "They scammed us"

The news came as a surprise as the team had shown promise during their time under 5W, winning the $60,000 Regional Clash Arena Europe after a run that included wins over teams like Gaimin Gladiators, GamerLegion and 3DMAX.

In an interview with HLTV, Thomas admitted that he, too, was suspicious of 5W at first, but when the organization agreed to pay one month's salary in advance, his concerns were assuaged. "This seemed like the strangest scam I’ve ever come across; they paid half the salaries and then left without saying a single word," he said.

The British player said that all the lessons he has learned since he began taking up IGL responsibilities are serving him well, and he feels ready to build on the success he had during his brief time with 5W. "I know wherever I land next I’ll be able to focus on building the best possible team."

Out of the blue, the team left 5W. Can you walk me through your time there, from the moment you began talks with them to the point where you left the organization?

Originally, I was building a new project for ITB, starring players like smooya. After a couple of weeks of trying to build a suitable lineup, I was offered the chance to join the 5W lineup, which on paper made sense for me: the lineup’s dynamics made total sense, and it was a risk I wanted to take to push myself in a new direction so I could develop and utilize my newer skill set.

Well, it was definitely an interesting period of my career. When discussing it with my agent, we had our reservations, but I believed that the roster overall was being built carefully and correctly concerning roles, positions and personalities, so this was the part that made me decide to take the risk and join them.

I asked for salary in advance to confirm any suspicions of this organization being fraudulent/scam so we could begin practicing and developing the roster. They paid, and that created trust between myself and the so-called owners that this was a legitimate project, so I began my work to bring this project together.

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5W enter CS with team headlined by Thomas and joel

After 30 days, a lot of suspicious decisions started to happen. Our GM, who was our only point of contact with the owners, was terminated from the company, and then our social media guy also vanished and stopped doing his work. They reached out several times to find a type of communication channel with our coach, Loord, but they were very slow at emailing and responding to our questions, then they eventually stopped emailing altogether and we no longer had any communication with them.

This is where we decided that we had had a really successful time as a roster and that everything was coming together in a fast manner so we decided to leave the organization — I don’t even think they cared anymore — and started to look for options to retain the roster.

How much money is the team owed? Are you taking any steps to get what you are owed or are you writing it off as a loss?

In my opinion, the whole situation regarding 5W and the money they owe to players will never be sorted. This seemed like the strangest scam I’ve ever come across; they paid half the salaries and then left without saying a single word. To fight them in court, we would have to travel to India, and for the total amount owed, it's not worth that effort.

The overall development of this whole situation still boggles my mind, it makes no logical sense and the owner we know of seems to be an agricultural farmer who deals with aloe vera farming. Honestly, for everyone reading this, yes, I know this is the strangest thing, and their ties to Indian esports and overall esports were blown way out of proportion. It was quite hard since I had never been affiliated with the Indian scene and/or known anyone from that scene personally.

How did this situation affect morale? Did it impact practice, for example?

Overall, this created an unsafe environment where we were pretty much free agents even while we were under 5W. For our practice schedule, this did indeed affect how much we invested into our schedule, but the players and I still felt that we needed to keep improving and fixing our mistakes so we stood a better chance of reaching the RCA finals.

The squad's morale wasn’t affected in-game, but mostly out of the game. The insecurity of what was unfolding to everyone was slowly becoming a reality, but we as a team decided to focus on the tournament at hand, and didn't give up due to this unfortunate event.

The team came together in mid-May and less than a month later, you won the Regional Clash Arena. Did you expect the players to gel so quickly?

In the weeks leading up to the tournament and during it, I worked extremely hard to focus on integrating everyone’s ideas on how to approach the game on all the maps. I was able to achieve this quite fast and created a structured environment that everyone bought into, which allowed us to play with a lot of cohesion. I feel that this environment felt very similar to the pre-Paris [Into the Breach] lineup, where all of the players were able to voice what they wanted and I supplied the structure and development of their tactics/ideas.

Throughout this brief period, working alongside Loord was an informative, effective and pleasurable experience. Having an open line of clear communication, where both parties were able to freely suggest and listen to each other's ideas, was a breath of fresh air.

This expedited the roster's progression and created an open but effective environment where all players and the coach felt comfortable liaising with each other. This experience has reinforced my understanding that the coach and IGL have to be on the same page.

The run was obviously surprising, especially with how efficient some of the wins were. I felt that the roster really clicked together and we had clear parameters on our T sides where all players understood their roles concerning pacing and structure. It was really nice to see everything coming together and that all the individuals were comfortable with the system I implemented throughout the tournament. I honestly believed that this roster could have made the Major, but unfortunately, the circumstances have now shadowed that.

This was not your first stint leading a team, but, from what I was told, during your time with ITB it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Has the role grown on you? How have you changed as a leader since you began calling? Is it a better fit now?

When playing on ITB I started my IGL career. I have experience and a great understanding of how players approach the game, which I've been able to utilize for development, cohesion, and understanding of people's strengths and weaknesses. Since leaving ITB, I’ve been able to restore my confidence as well as focus on the weaknesses I had on ITB.

The timeline from the Paris run to the absolute disaster that followed was an experience, especially for me. During the Paris run, I was very set on doing what I believed in and wouldn’t want to increase the playbook all too much, pretty much sticking with what I felt comfortable, but during this period I had a functional relationship with my coach, where strat book development was slow but still happening, and ultimately it helped me learn about this new role since this was my first shot at being an IGL.

After the player break, we lost CYPHER and volt to buyouts, and the rebuild began. The roster was built with more of a coach/organization approach instead of my influence. This was my own mistake because I was distracted and enjoying the moment instead of looking into the future. This was a key defining moment.

We started with NEOFRAG and Bymas at a bootcamp, and to say the least, we had issues from the very beginning, I had no line of communication with my coach due to this becoming more of a personal issue between me and him. The players were promised specific roles that clashed with the overall system, so when I turned up to the bootcamp I was informed that I had lost my roles, and pretty much all the work we had done with the prior roster was gone.

This period was a very dark stint for me. I had a coach that was openly disrespectful and undermining and that was pushing for me to be removed, which created an environment I didn't want to be a part of.

This of course created an untrustful environment, which plagued the roster until the RMR for the Copenhagen Major. During this period, I primarily wanted to exit the project, but unfortunately due to the team needing me because of the RMR spot, this wasn’t an option for the organization.

During this period, I learned the importance of leadership and how to prevent problems such as these. Neil_M was primarily the reason I stayed for a prolonged period, his support and what I learned from other IGLs, coaches and sports therapists throughout the scene really helped me develop my understanding of how the role is defined and how the inner workings of a team should take place. This made me focus on the key issues that I needed to focus on for my development.

The project reflected badly on everyone involved, but I felt it personally stuck with me for a longer period. I regret not using the initiative, knowledge and confidence I have now.

Several times the organization suggested to me that they thought it was best to make changes, but during these periods I think my overall mental health was messing with my head too much to make a call like this. I wasn’t confident or sure of what direction to take, and this is why I decided to step away from the team because I needed to fix my problems as a priority. These problems are in the past and are now fixed.

Returning to ITB: In December, the team was asked a simple question to either play the RMR with me or risk the open qualifiers. The team discussed and decided they wanted to play with me, so I returned to ITB as the IGL. This period was unfortunately similar to the previous stint. As soon as I came in, the reality of the previous situation had become ever more apparent, even though we had taken precautions and made agreements from either side to make this work.

Before the RMR, we had several key tournaments we used to develop. This period showed me that the problems between the IGL and the coach have to be resolved. Juve was unavailable for a brief amount of time, so we used Neil_M as our coach.

This small period really showed the roster's potential, and, to my understanding, the team started to have life, picking up key wins against BLEED, Metizport and SINNERS, which showed that the environment was the key issue for this roster to succeed.

Heading into the RMR, we unfortunately returned to this prior environment, where we weren’t up to par on a competitive level due to the internal issues that had brewed in the team. The results ultimately showed this, and this was the end of the roster. This prolonged period after Paris was one of the biggest learning curves I have had to reflect on and act on.

Since then, I’ve been able to develop myself alongside coaches and sports psychologists to improve my leadership capability and the relationships in the rosters I will have in the future. It was an unfortunate period for me but an important one that I’ve been able to learn from.

To sum everything up, the cohesion between the coach and the IGL is of paramount importance to the longevity of a CS roster. There are two sides to every story and this is mine about this story and how it affected me. I’m looking towards the future and hoping never to replicate this period ever again.

What are your goals for the future? What kind of team are you looking for? Will you and some other ex-5W players stick together?

The 5W project has fully disbanded, and all players are free to look for options. Concerning players sticking together, the overall core won’t be. joel has moved on, and I am after something with stability and longevity to continue improving myself and push forward a roster into the top 30 and make the Major again.

I hope that even in this small stint I was able to show people that I am still capable and that my philosophy works as an IGL. This team was developing fast and it's a shame to see it go. The hard work put in by all the players and the coach was something I missed for a long time. Having trust in players who can be themselves and feel open to talk was one of my missions. I can say I was able to achieve this, I know wherever I land next I’ll be able to focus on building the best possible team.