Recently, T1 wrapped up their event in Berlin, Germany, as part of a program organized by RedBull. As the sponsor of T1, Faker and his teammates were required to participate in a showmatch against teams from Europe. Their final match in this showmatch series was against G2 Esports. Naturally, given that this was purely a fun, entertaining event, and even T1 did not take the drafting seriously, not many cared about the results of these matches.
However, after T1 lost the BO1 match against G2, which was also their final match at this showmatch event, many comments criticizing Faker and his teammates surfaced. Notably, most of these comments came from the Vietnamese League of Legends community. According to these arguments, T1 “disrespected the audience” and “did not play like the world champions”. In fact, on a major forum of the Vietnamese League of Legends community, the derogatory remarks aimed at T1 players even made neutral fans “fume with anger”.
Opinions defending the T1 players emphasize that the matches were merely friendly games, and the T1 players were not playing at 100% capacity, leaning more towards entertainment and relaxation. Some even asserted that these showmatches were no different from regular ranked matches. After all, even players like Faker and Gumayusi chose their champions quite casually in their games.
Moreover, T1 players traveled a long distance from Korea to Germany in freezing weather. The time zone difference forced the players to compete from night until the early hours of the next day. It was not hard to spot images of T1 players appearing extremely fatigued, their eyes barely open, clearly struggling with sleepiness while competing continuously at such late hours.
Therefore, T1’s loss in the final match can be seen as a result of the players being genuinely exhausted. And one thing is for sure: this loss has no impact on T1’s preparations for the new season. Furthermore, the unreasonable attacks from a portion of the anti-fans highlight the toxicity of the Vietnamese League of Legends community, which seems to be proportional to the growth of League of Legends in the region.