Typed a longer response last night, but then deleted it because I was tired and it was rambling.
First, I appreciate your honesty. This reinforces the respect I've had for you for a while. I watched NCD's first four games in the tournament yesterday, and they seemed to be playing edge the whole time, or at least not hard zone. It was kind of hard to tell because Gdolphn accidentally had his cam on full screen for much of Game 2 lol, then in Game 3 Badoli and Naghz had to rez him in Geyser after they got caught between like 5 different teams near No Name. I'll finish up the other games later today.
I also agree that in any other context, NCD would have every right to contest COOLER. This is the Winter Circuit Grand Finals, though. When you have the opportunity to settle this elsewhere, like in scrims, and shoot it down, then the decision to push on with the contest in a $45,000 tournament takes on a very, very different character in my mind. Just because the money doesn't matter to them, doesn't mean that it doesn't matter to COOLER. The stakes are everything.
That points becomes all the more true when you consider the fact that NCD is like a week old. The LCQ was the first tournament they ever played together. They're not an established team, even if it's composed of established players, and history shows that there's an extremely high chance that they'll split by the time the Spring Circuit rolls around. Even if they stick together then, this isn't a LAN team, unless for some reason Gdolphn parts ways with TSM, which doesn't seem like something that would happen by choice for him, since he must be getting a pretty juicy salary to brush aside this prize pool. This is a good team and it could go far, but if money and LAN are clearly not their goals, what's their actual objective?
For all of the above reasons, I think they'd be huge assholes to do this to any team. For one, I would be nowhere near this civil if they were doing this to Nessy. There are a number of available drop spots, including Skyhook East, which would be much better for an edge team. Sure, they might not have practice rotating out of there, but they don't have much practice playing together as a team, either. Gdolphn is one of the only people in the world paid to analyze competitive Apex as a full-time job. Accordingly, he should be one of the best people in the world at modifying his plans in order to identify and secure optimal win conditions for himself. Statistically, contesting or even splitting loot is less likely to result in a victory than landing at a viable spot, like Skyhook East. Really any spot is more viable than a contest. NCD's are not the actions of a team intent on winning. Ergo, they aren't taking it seriously.
Last, on the point about checking friendships at the door: Again, that's reasonable in other circumstances, but this is one of the biggest competitive events of the year. There's $45,000 on the line. Gdolphn's asserting his right to contest COOLER, not because he actually cares about winning, but because he simply doesn't respect the gentleman's agreement that usually prevents contests like these from happening. He knows full well that this will fuck up COOLER's whole tournament while leaving them with no counter-play whatsoever. There's nothing they can do to stop this. Gnaske has every right to take that shit personally, especially when he was cheering for Gdolphn up until they won, at which point he still said he still offered his congratulations, even if he was nervous about the contest. With friends like these...