Vaevictis eSports made headlines in 2019 by sending an all-female team to compete in League of Legends. However, the team is now being removed from the league due to not winning a single game.
Update February 19: In the meantime, the jungler from Vaevictis has spoken out explaining what caused the team’s failure.
What happened? As reported by the website Invenglobal, the team Vaevictis eSports is being removed from the Russian LoL league LCL and replaced by another team.
The reason given is that Vaevictis is not competitive enough. The team is composed entirely of women, yet they were unable to win against their opponents even once. After 28 consecutive losses, it is now over.
The team will be replaced in the 2020 season by CrowCrowd, a team from the lower league. The LCL begins its season on February 22, while the European LEC is already in its fourth week. There, Schalke 04 secured their first win of the season against G2 Esports.
Teams acted disrespectfully towards the women
How did the last season go for Vaevictis? The 2019 season was not easy for the women’s team. Some of the other teams in the LCL acted disrespectfully towards Vaevictis. Even Riot Games themselves intervened.
For instance, the team ROX banned the 5 support champions Nami, Janna, Lulu, Thresh, and Braum. They took their opponents lightly and even allowed them strong champions while playing outside the meta themselves. Other teams also behaved disrespectfully and unnecessarily prolonged matches.
Of their 28 games, Vaevictis won none. Thus, the team leaves the league with a negative record and an average of 26 deaths per game.
Mockery from the community: There was also mockery within the LoL community, not just because of the losses in the league. A major point of criticism was that all the women had only reached Diamond rank in SoloQ.
Most professional players, on the other hand, reach Challenger or Grandmaster and thus belong to the best 0.77% of their region. About 2.1% of players reach Diamond (LeagueOfGraphs).
Therefore, many saw Vaevictis mainly as a marketing trick and less as a competitive team (reddit).
What’s next for the team? So far, there has been no statement from the organization regarding the future of the women’s team. According to Invenglobal, however, there is a possibility to participate in the Open Cup and thereby qualify for the next 2021 season for the LCL.
The 2020 season is also already underway in Korea. Here’s how Faker and his team T1 are currently doing:
