The 2020 LCS Summer Split has been rough for Immortals so far. The team is winless through two weeks and the organization fired general manager Keaton Cryer and head coach Thomas “Zaboutine” Si-Hassen last night.
As a result, many people in the League of Legends community have been criticizing Immortals’ mid laner, Jérémy “Eika” Valdenaire. Some people even suggested that Eika was going to be next on the chopping block based on the assumption that the 23-year-old was picked up by Zaboutine due to them sharing the same nationality.
But in response to these comments, a few League pros, like Team Liquid’s star jungler Broxah and Immortals’ veteran top laner sOAZ, have stepped up to defend Eika.
Honestly, I agree that the community has gone too far. It's unacceptable that one individual constantly gets bashed over and over at any given opportunity – and in the most mean and destructive ways possible.
Please think about the human sitting on the other side. https://t.co/QJmXDkWdKF
— Broxah (@BroxahLoL) June 25, 2020
Broxah said it’s “unacceptable that one individual constantly gets bashed over and over at any given opportunity.” He also said people should consider the human being sitting on the other side of the situation.
Eika’s teammate sOAZ also came to his defense after FlyQuest top laner Solo made a meme out of the situation. He said people were joking around and flaming his teammate “for no valuable reason [besides] to get retweets and likes.”
Although Eika isn’t having the best season, he’s endured plenty of criticism from the community. But the rest of his team isn’t doing that great, either. The entire roster is struggling, but Eika seems to be getting a lot more blame over things that aren’t even related to his gameplay.
Immortals will now be looking for a suitable coach and GM in the coming weeks. This team does need a bit of work to improve its position in the regular season standings, but a new coach could be a step in the right direction.
Immortals was announced on October 7, 2015 as a new esports franchise and also the new brand of Team 8, with that roster being their first of multiple planned esports teams Soon after the team’s creation, support player Dodo8 became the team’s player manager, retiring from competitive play. Immortals ended up with an entirely different roster from the Team 8 players that they started with: on December 8, they announced Huni, Reignover, Pobelter, WildTurtle, and Adrian as their roster for the 2016 season.
As Immortals returned to the LCS at the beginning of the 2020 season, the organization outbid other teams to sign Xmithie, who many considered one of the best junglers in North America. The Xmithie signing did little to bolster Immortals in the spring as the team finished in a three-way tie for sixth place. With a shot at the playoffs, IMT lost in the first part of the tiebreaker.
Immortals’ next game of the 2020 LCS Summer Split is against Golden Guardians.
