The stars of League of Legends, “Team Solo Mid”, are planning a training stay in South Korea to prepare for the Worlds in LoL. Fans in South Korea are not pleased with them.
According to the Korean site Inven, there are atmospheric disturbances between Korean LoL fans and the star team from the USA, Team Solo Mid.
Sparring matches leaked in 2016
In a post from September 5, Inven reported: TSM is coming to Korea for a bootcamp. There were some negative comments from the Korean community under the post.
Especially the former performance coach Weldon Green is not well-liked among fans in South Korea.
One wrote: “Everyone can come, even the Chinese teams, but not TSM! Just go straight to China!”
Usually, Inven writes, South Korean fans are very hospitable and happy when teams come to their country, but that is not the case with TSM.
Apparently, there is a tradition ahead of major tournaments to hold sparring matches (scrims) between the teams. These are strictly confidential; strategies and tactics should remain secret before the important World Championships. In 2016, videos of sparring matches between TSM and the South Korean top team SKT T1 were leaked to the public.
The fans in South Korea have not forgotten that. The accusation: “In this way, the strategies of SKT T1 could become public before the tournament.”
TSM stated that they did not publish this themselves, but a hacker. However, the Korean fans believe: “Then that is due to your weak security and you should have been more careful.”
The former TSM coach Weldon Green had said at that time that the hack was facilitated by the disadvantage of being away. They had to take the train to South Korea; if they had stayed in the USA, they would have had professional conditions and this wouldn’t have happened.
The incident has been hanging in the air since 2016. Other LoL teams are also concerned whether sparring matches will really remain confidential.
Jabs against the Koreans
However, that is not the only reason why TSM is not well-liked in South Korea. After their defeat during the 2016 Worlds against the Korean team SSG, TSM allegedly refused to shake hands after the game, Inven writes.
Furthermore, Weldon Green reportedly said on Reddit that the Koreans are very, very nationalistic. And during the boot camps, they only let teams from Europe and North America play against low-ranking Korean teams to gain information without revealing any.
As you can see: Atmospheric tensions between different nationalities exist in eSport just like in conventional sports.
The photos in the article were taken from the Facebook account of TSM.
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