In a recent article, I had written about Travis Gafford’s report to the LCS community about the rising issue concerning multiple LCS team owners requesting Riot Games to lift the import restriction. Since that article, Travis Gafford has continued to cover the issue by interviewing as many LCS players, organization owners, and experts as possible about the issue. However, despite the numerous interviews and opinions taken from all these parties, there still lacks a general consensus in the community about the issue, with many players, team owners, and fans to be at each other’s throats in disagreement.
Debates and heated interactions have taken place between all parties involved over social media. I’m going to present some of the most aggressive interactions coming from the most notable figures in the LCS community, as well as the context behind their statements.
In late February, prestigious esports organization, Cloud9, hosted a press conference with multiple esports journalists about their views concerning the issue. While most LCS team owners have been tight lipped about their definitive views concerning the possible removal of the restrictions, Cloud9 founder and CEO, Jack Etienne, expressed clear support and enthusiasm for the lifting of the restrictions. “I don’t see a point for it. Cloud9 has teams all over the globe, in Korea, In Europe, like everywhere. I like to support young people no matter where they’re born, and I don’t really like putting up these artificial fences to inhibit that development.”
However, on the Cloud9 subreddit, C9 fans were discussing in a thread the issue amongst themselves, a discussion in which Jack himself took a part of. One user expressed their disdain with the idea of a team consisting of foreign Korean imports representing North America. South Korea has produced numerous teams and players which have dominated professional League of Legends, many of these players coveted by team owners across the globe. Jack replied to this comment by declaring it “racist” and “xenophobic”. The statement stirred a lot of controversy within the subreddit and many fans poured into the threat to add their own input, most of it extremely critical towards Jack and his statements.
Jack wasn’t the only team owner causing disruption on social media. Andy Dinh, founder and owner of team TSM, replied to pro player, C9 Vulcan, about his tweet concerning import rules. Vulcan smugly stated that if organizations wanted teams full of imported players, they should simply go buy a team in that region instead. Andy Dinh replied with this:
It wasn’t long before it was equally criticized and meme’d on.
League of Legends shoutcaster and commentator, Riot Azael, contributed his own opinion about the topic. He emphasizes that the lifting of the import rule would be the “exact wrong time” due to the LCS finally properly fostering it’s amateur scene.
This concern that local amateur talent would never be considered if the import rule was lifted is shared and voiced by multiple professional players. One professional player, Mo “Revenge” Kaddoura, voiced this concern in an especially passionate tweet.
Riot Games has continually decided to stay silent on the issue as fans, team owners, and professional players duke it out over social media.
The Beat @APU 