Trio removed during $693,000 Finals after player tells Epic Games exec to “kill himself”

The cause of the FNCS disqualification was Fortnite player Wrigley, who posted a tweet during their Grand Finals run targeted at Epic Games' Chief Creative Officer Donald Mustard. The tweet - which has since been deleted along with the account - said: "Like literally fucking kill yourself @DonaldMustard".

Less than 12 hours later Wrigley, along with his team-mates Dictate and Userz, received an email from the tournament admin stating they had been removed "effective immediately". The tournament admin said they had violated 8.1.2 of the Official Rules. 8.1.2 states that: "players must be respectful of other players, Event Administrators, spectators and sponsors (as applicable)". As a further consequence of Wrigley's actions, all three players' lost their rights to any guaranteed prize money.

Dictate, Userz and Wrigley had taken 4 weeks to qualify. Their spot at the FNCS Finals was guaranteed after placing 4th at the NA East's Heat 3. However, the run was rendered void by the FNCS disqualification. "Actually crazy to me that I’m watching grands right now instead of playing," said Userz. The following day Userz said on Twitter that Dictating and him were looking for a new team-mate for the upcoming new season.

The trio had participated in Day 1 of 2 of the Grand Finals on March 13th and were set to play their remaining six matches on March 14th. However, their FNCS disqualification came overnight. The prize pool for the NA-East region was $693,000, the second largest in the FNCS behind the $1.3 million for Europe. Even in the case of last place the trio would still have earned prize money.

Epic Games' Donald Mustard made no reference to the incident on his Twitter but instead drew attention to the upcoming launch of Season 6 on March 16th.