League of Legends tweets
The group stages from groups A and B concluded Sept. 21 in the League of Legends World Championship in Taiwan.
Group A finished with Samsung White (South Korea) on top, while Group B was topped by Star Horn Royal Club (China).
Samsung White ended the week perfect (6-0), followed by Edward Gaming (4-3), Ahq e-Sports Club (3-4) and Dark Passage (0-6). Star Horn Royal Club led Group B (5-1), followed by Team SoloMid (4-2), SK Gaming (2-4) and Taipei Assassins (1-5).
People were shocked with how well Team SoloMid did, as North American teams were expected to do poorly against the Korean and other Asian teams. Some fans, such as UMD League of Legends club member Andrew Gao, ended up predicting that TSM would do this well.
“Actually, my bracket was almost spot on,” Gao said. “The only one I got wrong was SK and TPA.”
SK beat TSM in its last game, forcing TSM into second place in the group. This means that TSM will have to go against Samsung White in the playoffs. This disappoints TSM fans – a fight against a Samsung team likely means being sent home early.
Aside from matches, drama began to bubble behind the scenes. Team SoloMid’s coach and manager blasted Caster and ex-Counter Logic Gaming coach Cristopher “MonteCristo” Mykles and Counter Logic Gaming AD Carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng for doubting that TSM would continue to win in worlds.
TSM manager Andy “Reginald” Dinh fired shots on Sept. 18 with his tweet about Doublelift’s casting.
TSM coach Yoonsup “Locodoco” Choi immediately tweeted back a response to Reginald reading, “Do you want to hear another one? Monte’s coaching,” that has since been deleted. MonteCristo responded to the tweets, delving deeper into the conflict.
League of Legends tweets
Even Doublelift responded with a light jab back at the two TSM members.
Since then, Reginald and Locodoco have issued apologies viewable here and here.
Even though apologies were made, this left a bad taste in the mouths of many players and spectators. After all, the World Championship brings in viewers who don’t necessarily play League but play games like DoTa2, Smite and other MOBAs. Reddit posts and tweets popped up all weekend about how people viewed the League community as unprofessional (After all, we wouldn’t see that kind of smack talk in the NFL).
“There’s been worse in the e-Sports community. I think Locodoco’s never been the brightest guy around and Regi’s always been like that,” Gao said. “It’s definitely not something people would normally discuss in a public forum, and I’d hope they’re not purposefully trying to make drama, but I don’t think it’ll have any long-term consequences.”
The stages for Group C and Group D take place starting Thursday night in Singapore. Hopefully there’ll be less drama this time around.
The UMD League of Legends club is hosting a tournament sponsored by Capital One, with a $1,000 prize pool. If you want to enter, you need to have at least 20 ranked games under your belt by the Sept. 30. Get going, summoners!
Do you think Loco and Regi were just in what they were saying? Maybe you believed SK should have gotten first in their group? Comment below or shoot an e-mail to dahrae@terpmail.umd.edu!
