Yesterday, February 17, the VCS community was shaken when SBTC Esports surprised everyone again. However, this time it wasn’t due to their competitive performance, even though they secured a victory against Team Secret, but because their content team made a blunder that went “into the ground”. Specifically, during game 2 of the match against TS, while the VETV channel was broadcasting live and the result was still uncertain, SE’s content team posted an announcement that their team had lost game 2 and was preparing for game 3.
Immediately, this incident ignited a controversy within the VCS community and among SE fans. The majority of opinions were dissatisfied with the actions of the “Pink Chick” content team. The reason being, when the match had not yet concluded but a result was already posted, it could easily lead to suspicions of foul play, even though in reality, live matches are often delayed by a few minutes compared to the real-time events. This indicates that SE’s content team acted unprofessionally and that the management of SE was also lax. Evidence of this is that despite being condemned by fans, SE’s content team merely posted an apology and stated they had been punished, while the prior result announcement remained unchanged on their fan page.
And on the morning of February 18, SE officially received a penalty from the VCS organizers – who also manage the SEA Games 31 qualifiers for League of Legends. According to the penalty imposed, SE will lose 2 ban picks in their next BO3 match in the SEA Games 31 qualifiers (against Luxury Esports in the second week of competition).
Below the penalty post, the majority of comments agreed that this was the right decision by the VCS organizers, as the actions of SE’s content team were extremely unprofessional. Some fans bluntly commented “Recently established but SE has more penalties than GAM has championships” or “If there’s no penalty, it’s not SE”.
The actions of SE’s content team could seriously affect the professional image that Teacher Ba and the SE members are striving for in the new season. Additionally, the significance of the League of Legends team representing Vietnam at SEA Games 31 is extremely important, and surely, Garena does not want any incidents that could affect the tournament and ultimately the image of the entire nation.