The uproar against the management of T1 LoL by Korean fans has continued to escalate, with LCK caster and analyst Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare forced to deactivate his account after continued harassment towards him and his grandmother.
On a recent Twitch stream, Fnatic mid laner Tim ‘Nemesis’ Lipovšek revealed that the grandmother of the potential T1 coach has also been a target of harassment by fans of the legendary Korean organization.
“His grandmother has been harassed…and people want to do really bad things to him,” the Slovenian player said during his Nov. 8 broadcast.
The unfortunate events that have unraveled over the past week started in early November when T1 support Lee ‘Effort’ Sang-ho accidentally leaked Discord conversations that mentioned the addition of LS and ex-StarCraft II player Choi ‘Polt’ Seong Hun as heads of the coaching staff as part of the team’s restructuring.
Since then, LS and the T1 management have been under constant pressure from a large group of Korean fans to reverse their decision.
Personalities in the LoL esports scene like Christian “IWDominate” Rivera, Chris ‘PapaSmithy’ Smith, and Gabriël ‘Bwipo’ Rau have all commented on the severity of the situation.
“The doxxing/harassment of LS’s grandma is just sickening tbh, having to be on calls trying to plan out what to do if someone mails her something harmful or comes to her house to try and harm her in person is surreal,” IWDominate said. “How can video games make anyone do this…”
PapaSmithy did not agree at all with the way the situation had evolved.
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“Seeing this crusade against LS & a bold new direction in an LCK team’s coaching staff continue to gain traction has been very disappointing to me – Fans are welcome to be skeptical, but a witchhunt to stop it happening in this scenario is peak toxic fandom IMO,” he wrote.
Seeing this crusade against LS & a bold new direction in an LCK team's coaching staff continue to gain traction has been very disappointing to me – Fans are welcome to be skeptical, but a witchhunt to stop it happening in this scenario is peak toxic fandom IMO https://t.co/JzlyMKcklI
— Chris Smith (@PapaSmithy) November 7, 2020
Nick was forced to deactivate his account earlier this week due to the amount of toxicity received on his social media platform.
T1 fans have attacked this move for two main reasons: the first being Polt’s perceived inexperience when it comes to coaching and playing League of Legends as the ex-SC2 player has not been deeply involved with the scene for any significant amount of time.
The Korean team, formerly known as SKT T1 was an organization that made its name in multiple esports due to its success in multiple games, and fans feel like this change does not align with their standards.
The second point directly involves LS and his personality. Korean fans have referred to him as “controversial” due to his time coaching BBQ Oliviers and argument with SKT player Park ‘Untara’ Ui-jin.
Fans went so far as to hire a truck to travel the street of Seoul carrying messages against the organization’s management.
We are yet to see another response from the T1 management and whether their decision will ultimately be overturned in order to appease the fans.