IEM: San José was weird. Mark Cuban was there.

POSTS IN THE SHELL

Intel Extreme Masters: San José took place last Saturday and Sunday and it was weird. The Koreans lost, Doublelift played on Team SoloMid and Mark Cuban was there.

IEM, for those who don’t know, is a tournament for Counter Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends. People vote on their favorite teams to represent their region and then they duke it out in a bracket.

Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng debuted on his new team and that was bizarre. He had recently been dropped by his former team, Counter Logic Gaming, and since the two teams are rivals, it seemed like he never would have joined TSM.

The team did fine with their new line-up, only keeping Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg in the middle lane. Unfortunately despite this, they didn’t make it past semi-finals, losing to the European team, Origen.

Origen actually went on to beat Counter Logic Gaming and take the cup.

Everyone is used to Koreans sweeping in League tourneys, but this time Europe won. The Korean representatives, Jin Air, didn’t even make it past the semifinals.

If that isn’t bizarre enough, Mark Cuban was there. Yes, that Mark Cuban. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a personality on Shark Tank. He was there and he played League of Legends.

Cuban played in a friendly showmatch against the Intel CEO, Brian Krzanich. They each played on a team stacked with professional players. The proceeds from their match were donated to Cybersmile Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting cyberbullying.

Before the match in an onstage interview, Cuban dropped the f-bomb when smack talking Krzanich and was fined $15,000 for swearing on stage. When questioned about his swearing after the match, he asked the interviewer if the fine would be doubled if he swore again. She asked if he wanted to double the fine, to which he responded, “F— it.”

Those fines were also donated to Cybersmile Foundation, so in total they raised $38,000.

Why Mark Cuban was there? How did the Koreans lose? IEM was weird.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this story stated that Jin Air won in the semifinals and lost to Origen in the finals. Jin Air lost in the semifinals to Counter Logic Gaming and did not go on to the final round. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.