The current US champion in League of Legends, Cloud9, is going through a strange phase. At the start of the second half of the LCS in LoL, Cloud9 banned their star player Jesper “Zven” Svenningen (21) to the academy team – apparently for disciplinary reasons. But it seems they can’t do without the Dane.
This is the situation:
- Cloud9 won the Spring Split of the USA, but was eliminated early at MSI. Allegedly, there were frictions within the team during the Mid-Season tournament. Star ADC Zven was then banned to the academy league as a “disciplinary measure”: Rumor has it that Zven got so angry about his team’s poor performance that he flamed teammates internally.
- While Zven dominated in the academy league, Cloud9 lost three games in a row without him among the professionals.
- Now they are bringing the player back – the ridicule in LoL is great.
Star player demolishes the academy league of LoL
How did Zven perform? Zven is considered one of the best ADCs in the professional league LCS: Banning him to the academy league turned out to be pretty bad for his opponents there.
In the LoL academy team, Zven was practically unstoppable. In his 12 appearances there, he demolished the league and achieved 64 kills with a KDA of 10.5. This is the top value in the North America Academy league, as Dotesports knows. He played champions like Kai’Sa, Tristana, or Ezreal. Especially with Kai’Sa, he was deadly: he achieved 23 kills and died only 4 times in his 3 matches with her, all of which he won (via lol.fandom).
On reddit, people made fun of the fact that Zven was playing against the world-class bot lane of Royal Never Give Up in one game and in the next match against the academy team of the Golden Guardians. It was like he was “smurfing” (via reddit).
Cloud9 loses 3 games in a row without star, loses first place
This is how it went for Cloud9: Without Zven, things went just moderately well for Cloud9. Instead of Zven, the 23-year-old rookie K1ng played. He did his job solidly, but without Zven, Cloud9 lacked the dominant bot lane.
The team played the 9 games without Zven only 4-5 and fell from 1st place to 3rd place. Particularly bad: The last 3 games without Zven, Cloud9 lost all. A defeat against championship rival Team SoloMid hurt especially.
Among fans, a loss against “Counter Logic Gaming” is most discussed: They are at the bottom of the table. Against such teams, Cloud9 should not lose if they want to become champions and qualify for Worlds 2021.
This is now the news: Without further comment, Cloud9 simply posted “He’s back” with a photo of Zven.
Much ridicule and confusion for the switch
This is how it is discussed: The switch involving Zven is critically viewed on Twitter and reddit, as hardly anyone understood why Zven was benched at all. The conflicts that led to this were not public and were not communicated further. A player from Cloud9 merely stated: Playing without Zven is better for team atmosphere.
Some also speculated that the head of Cloud9, Jack Etienne, wanted to put K1ng in the spotlight to sell him for a high price.
However, bringing Zven back into the lineup is generally viewed as a poor management decision. The management seems to be conceding here.
However, on reddit, people discuss that the new ADC K1ng is not the problem, but rather there seems to be something wrong within the team. The drafts are puzzling and there is a lack of coordination and clear decisions in matches.
This is the background: The situation is sensitive and seems arbitrary, as nobody outside of Cloud9 knows what Zven was specifically “punished” for. If he indeed insulted the poorly performing jungler, as rumored, then his “unbanning” sends a strange signal saying: “You can behave poorly, if you are good, we will forgive you everything.”
In any case, it seems that something is indeed wrong at Cloud9, despite having such outstanding players as Perkz and Zven.
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