Pizza Party: the Dota 2 roster-kick meme

Fnatic, Ohaiyo and the Katowice 2018 qualifier

In January 2018, Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao was captain of Fnatic. On January 12, the team, with offlaner Chong Xin “Ohaiyo” Khoo, qualified for the ESL One Katowice 2018 Major. The very next day, January 13, the organization announced that Sahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora would take Ohaiyo's spot.

Ohaiyo said publicly that he learned about the change a few hours after qualifying, and that UNiVeRsE had flown to Malaysia before the qualifiers even started. Esports media quoted his line “This is how cruel they are.”

The swap was announced shortly before the Major's roster lock deadline, so fans learned about it just a day after the team had qualified for the event.

Where the pizza comes in

According to the community version, the team was celebrating its Major qualification with pizza, and right in the middle of that modest party Ohaiyo was told he was leaving the roster. That's how “pizza party” came to mean a celebration after which someone ends up off the team.

Fnatic and EternaLEnVy later said there was no party at all, that the decision had been made before the qualifier, and that it was a team-wide call. So the pizza is part of the community's version of events rather than an established fact.

The disputed No Tidehunter version

One English-language roundup of Dota memes offers a different take: that the meme was born in 2013, when EternaLEnVy was removed from the team No Tidehunter. That kick did happen, on February 21, 2013, but no other sources mention pizza in connection with it.

Most esports outlets tie “pizza party” to Fnatic and Ohaiyo. In that version, EternaLEnVy isn't the one who got kicked but the captain of the team that made the change.

As a result, different roundups cast EternaLEnVy either as the player who got kicked or as the captain who made the call. Either way, the phrase “pizza party” is tied to his name in both versions.

How pizza became a symbol of getting kicked

Today, a “pizza party” in Dota means an imminent kick or roster swap. Pros joke that they get nervous when someone offers them pizza after a match. Even Domino's in Malaysia picked up the meme and used it in an ad.

The community brought up a similar story later on: OG's Resolution posted a photo of pizza and was replaced about six weeks later. Fans cite coincidences like that as a continuation of the same joke.

The phrase is used in English or as the Russian calque «пицца-пати», most often when discussing the transfer window and roster shuffles before big tournaments.

The pizza box photo in the catalog

The catalog image shows a smiling guy in sunglasses and a red T-shirt holding an open pizza box and making an “OK” sign. According to the source's caption, it's EternaLEnVy.

The open pizza box in the photo became the meme's visual shorthand: in the joke, a celebration like that means parting ways with a player.

Captions about team dinners

These examples are made up for illustration: “The team ordered pizza. The offlaner started updating his résumé”, “Captain: guys, pizza's on me tonight. Fifth player: I think I'll head home”, “We won the qualifier. Now waiting for pizza and roster news.”

The captions all use the same trick: any mention of pizza, a celebration, or a team dinner reads as a hint that the lineup is about to change. The same trick works for jokes outside Dota too, say, about a surprise all-hands with free food announced in a work chat.