The LoL Worlds 2020 start this week: One of the strangest paths to the World Championship has certainly been taken by DragonX’s coach, cvMax: In 2019, he was actually banned for life from the League of Legends for allegedly choking a player. Now he stands as the big winner and as a genius.
This was the rise of the coach: Coach Kim “cvMax” Dae-ho is 30 years old and has been considered something like “the exceptional coach” in South Korean LoL for the last 3 years, a mix of Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola.
The site Inven compares his résumé to that of an anime character: A hero who sets a huge goal and pursues it against all odds.
Without much esports background, cvMax applied unsuccessfully to several teams in 2017 until he found an esports manager who believed in the newcomer and entrusted him with leading his team: But that unfortunately wasn’t very good.
From 2017 onwards, cvMax coached the team Griffin, a team that no one had previously considered. They played in the 2nd Korean League and no one knew their players. But cvMax’s relentless ambition made a lot possible. He managed to get the team promoted. Then he boldly announced: His goal was to win the World Championship. And he meant it seriously.
Indeed, he was able to take a really strong role in the 1st League of Korea with Griffin in 2018 and 2019.
Although it wasn’t enough for the championship, it at least qualified them for the World Championship. There, cvMax’s dream was supposed to come true: To win the Worlds once.
Besides, cvMax streamed and became a star for LoL fans in South Korea from 2017 to 2019: a hungry, rising coach who did everything right and formed a winning team out of nowhere. That was the story in South Korean LoL – cvMax was clearly seen as the mastermind behind Griffin’s success.
By now, cvMax had also proven his nose for talents and developed and elevated young players like Doran in the top lane or Chovy in the mid lane into stars.
Completely chaotic conditions at Griffin were exposed
This was the deep fall: Before the Worlds 2019, cvMax was suspended by his team and fired.
He himself said: There had been a rift between him and the manager, who had given him the great chance two years prior.
Allegedly, trust had broken down between the two after Griffin lost to Faker and SKT1 in the finals of the Summer Split 2019.
It was said by cvMax that the manager blamed him for this defeat. They couldn’t get over it. That destroyed the trust.
During the World Championship, the situation then changed. Now the CEO of Griffin said: The manager was to blame for the situation. They apologized to cvMax and now saw the manager as guilty. He had pressured players to accept contracts.
Therefore, during the ongoing World Championship, the manager was fired. For Griffin, the World Championship ended shortly thereafter. The Chinese team Invictus Gaming eliminated them in the quarterfinals, mercilessly exposing the weakness of the team, top laner Sword.
Sword had only joined the team when cvMax was suspended – he was now seen as the scapegoat who had “whined” into the team and displaced the actual star, Doran.
But a few days later, new serious accusations emerged:
- It was said: cvMax allegedly choked one of his players, namely the top laner Sword, and insulted others.
- Additionally, there were irregularities in handling player contracts and transfers, involving the young star jungler Kanavi, who is now the top player for World Championship favorite JD Gaming. He switched to Team Dragon X under strange circumstances.
Team Griffin was hit with harsh penalties: It was said that they had foisted “slave contracts” on the players.
cvMax was ultimately banned for life by Riot Games, because Riot Games found evidence that the coach allegedly physically or verbally abused some of his players. The players then gave major interviews to gaming sites.
The fairy-tale career of cvMax seemed to be completely over in 2019.
Fans save their hero, cvMax – 200,000 sign petition
This is how it continued: Despite the allegations, South Korean fans were fully on cvMax’s side: For them, the accusations were unfounded and came from offended players who couldn’t handle a coach who gives them clear instructions.
The fans protested loudly against the lifetime ban. 200,000 fans signed a petition, leading Riot Games to relent and lift the ban until further investigations were completed.
Because Team Griffin fell apart over the conflict, cvMax took two of his best players with him and switched to rival Dragon X (DR). At that time, Dragon X was also imploding: They had separated in a dispute from the coach and almost all players.
Starting again from scratch, triumphing again
At Dragon X, cvMax had to rebuild the team from the ground up and shaped, again within a short time, a top team by signing rookies in whom he saw great potential.
Now cvMax is at the World Championship with DragonX. Griffin, on the other hand, has plunged into obscurity.
At the Worlds, DragonX is currently ranked 6th by bookmakers to win the 2020 World Championship. Perhaps cvMax’s dream will still come true.
It would indeed be like in an anime with a pretty bad twist.
This is what it’s about: The amazing thing is
- some of his old players really find cvMax pretty awful and publicly attacked him – foremost Sword, who made the most accusations
- His top stars, mid laner Chovy and top laner Doran, however, seem to adore cvMax and praise him in the highest terms. Allegedly, Chovy turned down good offers from abroad to stay with cvMax
With the team, it really seems that the coach is the star. Whether cvMax can now bring his legend to a worthy conclusion at the Worlds 2020, we will see in the coming weeks.
This is truly an extraordinary story that cvMax has behind him. His team is ranked 6th in the odds to win the 2020 Worlds.
We have looked in an article at the teams that are still a bit stronger than Dragon X and are given higher chances:
Who will win the LoL Worlds 2020 and become the new superstar? A 20-year-old
