As you probably know, especially if you’ve been paying attention to the news, League Of Legends is currently in the roster shuffle period. That by itself means there is a lot going on in the LOL community, and we have yet to have a year where there wasn’t any drama included. This time there are some serious problems involving one of the biggest teams in history, Korean T1, and their, now already confirmed, new American streamer and content creator, Nick LS De Cesare.

Unfortunately, to say that LOL community is full of toxic behaviour isn’t anything new and although often swept under the rug, when it includes one of the most prominent organizations in the world, it’s impossible for it not to make waves across the community. Therefore, esports news outlets have been full of the T1/LS/racism/fans drama, where the American had to defend himself after making some questionable comments in the past. But, let’s start from the beginning.

What Is Really Happening In LOL Community

T1 is a huge team who’s won the Worlds several times and had many other achievements, but they’ve been struggling for more than a year now, so it’s completely reasonable for their fans to be eager and tense, waiting for their every roster move with anticipation. So far they’ve acquired two new coaches and support Keria from DRX, but when rumours about LS coming to one of the coaching positions started circulating, fans went nuts. In fact, they went so nuts some of them even organized protests in front of RIOT headquarters in Seoul with billboard vans carrying messages like: “The players are not your cash cows,” “We, SKT T1 fans, demand a clear and detailed explanation from top management” and “No future for a team that shuts out devoted fans.” But, why?

Well, it all started back in 2019., when a lesser-known Swedish player, Malice, and LS (in the role of a coach) signed for Korean bbq Olivers. And to cut the long story short, Malice was not well received by the community, being suspended and accused of a very toxic behaviour in-game. He received a bunch of backlash in return and that is when LS decided he should stand up for him, accusing Koreans of having double standards and being “borderline racist and xenophobic”, claiming he wouldn’t have gotten such a response for his actions if he weren’t a foreigner. And although Malice kept behaving badly, LS kept defending him, even when Untara, Korean top laner, released a video which included some of Malice’s trolls and insults. LS accused him of “tormenting” Malice because he is a foreigner, and at that point the fans were done with him. From that perspective, it’s easy to see why fans went ballistic when T1’s support Lee Effort Sang-ho (allegedly) leaked the info that LS is going to be T1’s new coach.

LOL Community Has Some Serious Problems With High-School Type Of Drama

And that’s the other part of the drama. Effort’s leak had a very strong reaction from Gabriël Bwipo Rau, a Fnatic top laner, who is LS’s close friend. He came to his defence stating that Korean fans were harassing him, and Fnatic mid-laner Tim Nemesis Lipovšek added that fans have harassed both him and his grandmother. Yeah, it’s that crazy.

Finally, T1 decided to step in and take the blame. They’ve said that it was organization’s fault, not Effort’s, that the information got leaked. Right after that Bwipo apologized to Korean community and both T1 and Effort for his “rushed statement”. And then LS himself released a long YouTube explanation. First off, he apologized to Untara, acknowledging he offended fans, proceeded to express his love for Korea and T1, who have been, as he claims, an incredible support through these tough times, and offered him a coaching position which he declined to be a streamer. So most news outlets blame T1 for all this mess, everybody said they were sorry and all is fine and well. Except it obviously isn’t, if all of this could’ve even happened.

Toxicity in LOL community is a word that keeps being tossed around, to that extent that it has lost its meaning. Also, it’s obviously transferring to real life, becoming a burden on both players and fans, so it’s about time someone does something about it. And although RIOT had some attempts, including their “good behaviour island”, they have yet to invent software for decent behaviour IRL.

While all of this drama is going on, it’s good to take your mind off of it and come back to the core, games and teams. You can play for free on our site, so Pick 6 and play today.