Currently, the Swiss stage of the World Championship (Worlds) 2023 is gradually coming to a close, and the teams that are guaranteed to advance to the Quarterfinals are starting to emerge. JD Gaming stands out with their overwhelming strength, along with Gen.G, who remains strategic and composed. Meanwhile, other teams like LNG Esports, T1, and KT Rolster still have bright prospects despite not having final results. On the other hand, Dplus KIA is the only representative from the two strongest regions (LCK-LPL) that has yet to secure any victories.
As for LNG, after their loss to JDG, they still hold an advantage with a record of 2 wins – 1 loss. Scout and his teammates still have plenty of opportunities to advance as among the opponents with a 1-1 record, only T1, KT Rolster, Bilibili Gaming, and Weibo Gaming could potentially challenge the “Suzhou Unicorns.” Scout himself also performed well in the recent match against JDG, which has further boosted LNG fans’ confidence.
However, if the opponent is “playing tricks,” things could still be uncertain. Specifically, after the recent victory against Cloud9, Scout immediately made a post on his personal Instagram stating: “Nice tactical pause lol” (translated: Nice game pause). Scout’s post implied the continuous “pause game” situations from C9. One of these was the third pause, when Zven mentioned that his keyboard was still having issues, forcing Riot to use “chronobreak” to rewind the game to a few seconds prior.
Notably, before Zven “paused the game,” Blaber had invaded LNG’s Red Buff and was about to face Tarzan and Hang. However, when the game was rewound, Blaber did not move to the position (which he already knew) that had a ward from LNG. Instead, C9 took Baron and gained an advantage over LNG. Of course, in the end, LNG was still the winning team.
It would be difficult to claim that C9 deliberately “cheated” during the Baron attack situation. However, it is clear that the “pause game” provided C9 with a certain advantage, and Scout was not pleased about this at all.