Esports can get heated, and that only gets worse when every move is being streamed live. This ended up being the case before any games were played during the drafts of the Twitch Rivals tournament being held in the professional League of Legends streaming community.
There’s a lot that goes into this, as there always is with drama. The core of it is that professional support Johnny “Swifte” Ngo was drafted to be the support for Trick2G’s team, aptly named Team Trick2G, and immediately withdrew from the tournament instead.
If it ended there, or was that cut and dry, no one would have any issues. It’s alarming to see a supposed professional immediately bailing on a tournament due to not liking the team he was drafted to instead of remaining professional and playing it out, but other than that, what’s the big deal?
Unfortunately, Swifte saw fit to go to social media and post some now-deleted tweets that contained some vitriolic, ableist language a bit too graphic for us to post here. He took specific grievance not only with the team he had been drafted to, hinting that he (undeservedly) believes himself to be significantly above their skill level, but also towards anyone in the League of Legends community that dared call his fragile mentality “weak.”
Group B’s ready to rock.@Yassuo@Nightbloo@Shiphtur@Trick2g pic.twitter.com/TwVb2G8GTL
— Twitch Esports (@TwitchEsports) January 7, 2020
Swifte was drafted to support Trick2G’s ADC, Horsey, of whom is ranked in Diamond 4 instead of Challenger like the illustrious Swifte. Many assume this is one of the primary reasons for his immediate withdraw.
It doesn’t help that in mid-December, Swifte was lambasted by one of the opponents he would be facing in the Twitch Rivals showdown, Yassuo. The two were both streaming a game that they were teamed up on when Swifte criticized his team for dying, stating that they were intentionally feeding.
This led to Yassuo harshly criticizing his poor mentality and communication skills in a quick-but-vicious roast that circulated through the League community thoroughly over the last month. In the aftermath of Swifte’s immature move, he was replaced by lolgeranimo as the rest of the tournament began to mock and jeer towards him.
With all that, it seems like the tournament is off to a pretty great start! While no one but Trick2G himself can speak for his team, one would imagine that Team Trick2G is probably a bit relieved to have dodged the bullet that they almost had with having such a negative force on their team. Regardless of how it goes out, though, Twitch Rivals is shaping up to be a great tournament!
