While off-season is causing plenty of roster changes to prominent League of Legends teams, it’s also causing some unnecessary drama within the community. A recent situation involved T1’s support Lee “Effort” Sang-ho unintentionally leaking important roster information. The leak initiated an impulsive response from Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau, which then lead to a full-blown apology from him as well as T1.
Plenty of unintentional drama
Amid the free agency period, some unexpected changes have been happening within teams. This past week, Effort had streamed to his audience and unfortunately forgot to turn off the screen capture once his stream was over. This prompted a sudden spiral of events where he accidentally leaked a Discord conversation that exposed the addition of Nick “LS” De Cesare and Choi “Polt” Seong Hun as the new coaching staff.
LS and Polt in an awkward situation
After the leak happened, some T1 fans were unhappy about the news and ended up harassing both LS and Polt. This restructuring isn’t the ideal situation that fans hoped for, so the leak unfortunately harmed LS’ mental health, according to his friend Bwipo.
To the people wondering why I removed my posts:
The purpose was never to harass @T1 or it's employees.
It has come to my attention that this is happening.I don't want that to happen.
So I will clarify. I want LS to get his fair shot at coaching.
He was promised one.— Bwipo (@Bwipo) November 14, 2020
As a result of the backlash against LS, Bwipo published a Twitlonger on November 8, addressing the hate his friend has received from the Korean community. “The majority of negativity and bad rumors surround a person I personally respect.” He added, “He did not, and does not want to leave Korea. He has a love for the country and it’s [sic] people, and has always supported the thought of staying there.”
Bwipo’s response sparked outrage over a minority of the LCK community. The situation had gotten so stressful to LS, that former Fnatic mid-laner Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek stated on a Twitch stream, that fans have harassed both him and his grandmother.
Bwipo and T1 apologizes to Effort and LS
To correct the situation, T1 released an apology letter to LS. They took the blame over his screen capture software staying on after the stream ended, and states that it was not Effort’s mistake, but theirs.
"Effort" 이상호 선수에게 사과드립니다.
Official Apology to Effort. pic.twitter.com/AS6CfYmACx— T1 LoL (@T1LoL) November 19, 2020
In addition to this letter came Bwipo’s Twitlonger apology to the LCK community. He listed reasons as to why he was in the wrong, and how he could improve in the future. “I understand now that a rushed statement could have done more harm, as mine has. I am sorry to everyone involved in the hatred involved in my poorly handled involvement in the matter,” he said. According to responses, the LCK community is receiving his statement well.
I was just contacted by some of the T1 management regarding the statement I made on the podcast. I was told that it was a technical issue that he could not have avoided.
I'm taking this moment to apologize to Effort and T1 for causing these misunderstandings to get out of hand.
— Bwipo (@Bwipo) November 19, 2020
Effort has no idea that Bwipo has apologized to him, as he’s currently in the middle of scrims. However, T1 has permitted for Bwipo to personally reach out to Effort either way. Fans may see a response from the T1 support player sometime soon.
