In League of Legends, there was a negative award called the Dade Award. It was awarded annually to the player who disappointed at a LoL Worlds despite high expectations. But now the award is being withdrawn after much backlash: the last three “winners” Bjergsen, Ruler, and Nuguri will be removed from the list.
What kind of award is this? The “Dade” Award is named after Korean midlaner Bae “Dade” Eo-jin. He won everything possible in the regular season of 2013. He was seen as a favorite to shine at the Worlds. But at the LoL Worlds 2013, he disappointed.
From 2013 to 2016, the Dade Award was given by two LoL analysts in their talk show to the player they believed disappointed the most.
Starting in 2017, the award was continued but was given out by a fan site, Leaguepedia.
What categories was the award based on?
- The award could only be given to one player – not to a team
- This player had to have reached a high hype level before the Worlds, ideally being in the “Top 20” lists of analysts
- And the player had to disappoint at the Worlds, meaning losing to opponents who were rated weaker than him before
Leaguepedia now gives out the award on its own
What happened after 2016? Since 2017, the award has not been given by the well-known analysts, but rather by the site “Leaguepedia”.
- In 2017, it was awarded to Bjergsen, the Midlaner of TSM (featured image)
- In 2018 for Ruler, the young botlaner of GenG
- In 2019 now for Nuguri, the top laner of DAMWON Gaming
Here’s the problem: Already in 2018, there were discussions in the community about whether it was fair to award “Ruler” the prize. Because Ruler actually played a decent Worlds – it just didn’t go well for his team.
Ruler was the star of the LoL Worlds in 2017, when Gen G. even became world champions. But in 2018, Gen G. was already eliminated in the group stage.
This year the award was given to Nuguri, a 20-year-old Korean. He managed to take his team DAMWON Gaming at least to the quarter-finals and only looked so bad there because the rest of the team let him starve on the top lane.
The fans said: The player did not disappoint at all like previous award winners. That DAMWON Gaming won the group and then lost against G2 Esports, a favorite, is not a disappointment.
G2 Esports has a strong top laner in Wunder anyway. Moreover, Nuguri often died because G2’s midlaner, Caps, could move freely around the map.
Recently, there was quite a bit of backlash regarding Nuguri receiving the Dade Award. Even the original presenter of the award, Thorin, said it would be good to not award a prize for a year.
This year and last year, there wouldn’t have been anyone who deserved the award.
This is the reaction now: The operator of Leaguepedia has spoken out:
- The last 3 “Dade” awards to Bjergsen, Ruler, and Nuguri will be deleted
- In the future, Leaguepedia will no longer award the prize
The operator of the site Rheingold River says: The one who distributed the awards for Leaguepedia honestly thought he was acting on behalf of the community. But that has now turned out to be a mistake that needs to be corrected.
River says this is not a reaction to the current backlash, but that they themselves were not happy to spread views here when there was no consensus in the community. They do not want to take on this role as Leaguepedia.
