Team Heretics Denies Owning Money to Former VALORANT Player
Team Heretics, a prominent organization in the League of Legends community, has been making headlines recently. Before their acquisition of Misfits Gaming’s spot in the LEC, a former player from their VALORANT team made claims that the organization owed him money. However, Heretics has strongly denied these allegations.
Tyler “Foxie” Lowton, who was previously signed to Heretics as a VALORANT player, stated that the organization failed to pay him the termination fee outlined in his contract from January. According to Foxie, Heretics owed him his salary for his time on the team, as well as a fee equal to two months’ salary upon the termination of his contract.
Foxie claimed that the team did not want to terminate his contract in order to avoid paying the full agreed-upon termination fee. Instead, they tried to sell him to Team Queso for a small fee. When Foxie resisted the transfer, asserting that the team was simply trying to avoid paying him, he says that his agent and the organization came to an agreement. This agreement involved terminating his contract in exchange for signing an agreement in which Foxie agreed not to damage or criticize Heretics in any way.
Arnau Vidal, co-owner of Team Heretics, confirmed in an interview with that when the decision was made to remove Foxie from the VALORANT lineup, the organization entered into discussions with his agent. They eventually reached an agreement for the termination of Foxie’s contract for a specified amount of money. Vidal strongly refuted Foxie’s allegations and stated that Heretics had not gone back on any contractual agreements or commitments made with Foxie.
Foxie claims that Heretics did not pay the agreed-upon fee between his agent and the organization due to two tweets. One of the tweets was a farewell message in which Foxie tagged his former VALORANT teammates. The organization allegedly informed him that this leak of the roster would damage their reputation, despite Foxie’s claim that the roster had already been announced by numerous sources before his tweet.
Foxie also created a tier list of European VALORANT teams, in which he ranked Heretics at the bottom. This tier was labeled “Al0rante and friends,” with Heretics being the only team in that tier. Foxie posted an image of this tier list along with his public claims against Heretics, stating that it was taken from a letter by Heretics’ lawyer. The letter claimed that the tier list expressed a derogatory and defamatory opinion about the team. Foxie says that as a result, Heretics refused to pay him due to the “damaging content” he had posted.
Vidal confirmed that the letter was indeed sent by Heretics’ lawyer. However, he emphasized that it was not solely the tier list that led to the organization’s decision not to pay Foxie’s termination fee. According to Vidal, the tier list was taken into account along with the leak of the VALORANT roster. He also mentioned that Foxie had spent considerable time speaking negatively about the organization, teammates, and other aspects.
Vidal clarified that Foxie’s initial contract already included non-disparagement clauses, as is standard for all Heretics players. The contract termination agreement also had similar clauses, but they did not impose any additional obligations beyond what Foxie had already agreed to in his previous contract.
Vidal concluded by stating that no other player from Team Heretics has reported any issues with receiving payment during their time with the organization or upon leaving. He emphasized that if a player breaches their contract multiple times, they cannot expect to face no consequences.
Heretics is preparing to join one of the most prestigious esports competitions in the world, the LEC, starting from next year.