The YouTuber Maximilian “HandofBlood” Knabe has entered the eSports scene in Germany with his own LoL team Eintracht Spandau, aiming to conquer E-Sports with League of Legends. On social media, the team is huge, but in terms of sports, they still fall short of their big ambitions in 2023. Within a few days, the dream of the German championship and the entry into the European Cup was over again.
How did the team fail?
- Eintracht Spandau is playing in the 1st German League, the “PRM 1st Division”: In the Summer Split 2023, they had high hopes for the title. The regular season ended with EINS placing second with 14-4, only SK Gaming Prime was ahead of them.
- But in the playoffs, they faced a rude awakening: All hopes were dashed within 3 days: They lost the first match on Thursday, August 3, 0-3 against SK Gaming and thus slipped into the Losers Bracket. The second defeat came on Sunday, August 6: They were eliminated with a 1-3 against the Unicorns of Love.
- The team has once again missed its high goals: Eintracht Spandau will neither become champions nor can they qualify for the European Cup. They wanted to bring the European Cup to Berlin and become German champions anyway.
“It feels like we’re always being outclassed” – Team messes up playoffs
What does HandofBlood think about this? HandofBlood sounds surprisingly disillusioned on Twitter. The YouTuber and person himself speaks, not an egomaniacal persona.
He writes that being eliminated from the playoffs really hurts because it happened this way (via twitter):
It is frustrating to see that when it matters, we simply do not deliver in sports, let alone meet our own expectations.
The YouTuber hints that it’s okay to lose a match and miss goals. But being eliminated so hopelessly and “getting knocked out 0-3” really bothers him. It feels like they are always being outclassed.
He intends to find out within the team what the problem is and to work on it.
What are the reactions? Most fans are cheering up HandofBlood. They have achieved so much in a short time. He shouldn’t get discouraged. But some are already disappointed after the strong regular season: The league went well, but we still need to work on the playoffs, they say about the elimination.
But his team Eintracht Spandau is often provocative on social media and insults their opponents, claiming that only Koreans and a few randoms play, throwing shade on YouTube against the Unicorns of Love, who are fielding 2 Koreans and 3 Germans.
The mockery is now assured for the team: “Less social media, more focus on the game” someone throws at the Berliners on Twitter.
What’s behind this: Eintracht Spandau relies on 4 players who are 25 and 26 years old: Only the supporter Lillip is 22,
So it’s not a team with “talents” who might make it big; rather, it is a team with established players who are expected to win now.
Therefore, there is no option to be patient and give the players more time, trusting that they will blossom in the coming years. They will have to recruit new players again and let some go, which actually contradicts HandofBlood’s plan to develop a team that stays together long-term to create identification with the players.
Originally, the team also wanted to rely more on German players, but they seem to have given up on that as well. The ideas they had to build a team “from the neighborhood” don’t really align with the sporting reality.
The casters from Eintracht Spandau are top-notch, but the team is struggling a bit:
Even though Eintracht Spandau is very prominent on social media, the “sporting success” in LoL is hardly predictable: Even pro teams fluctuate in LoL. Teams that become world champions in one year can become completely irrelevant the next, because a single player leaves or a form crisis arises.
If a team fixes in its mind that it is “strong in the league, but falls apart in the playoffs,” it is a serious problem that HandofBlood will have to grapple with.
However, this is a problem that he does not have exclusively. The nominal best player in Europe and the two best German players also had a total nightmare season, and nobody knows exactly why:
LoL: The 2 best German players switch to Perkz’s super team, fail – “Doesn’t feel real”
