SK Telecom T1 is the most decorated team in League of Legends history, and while the past few years of competitions hasn’t been particularly kind to them, the revamped squad is currently sitting in a comfortable third place in the LCK. However, that hasn’t stopped one caster from labelling the squad “has-beens” who don’t deserve their salaries.
According to Dexerto, the Korean shoutcaster, who made the comments earlier this month and streams under the name NiceGameTV, drew enough attention that the team’s former ADC, Bae ‘Bang’ Jun-Sik, has weighed in to defend his previous team-mates’ reputations.
Bang, who last year moved from SKT T1 to join NA team 100Thieves, took to Twitter in retaliation. In a tweet posted earlier this week (translated by bilingual esports journalist Ashley Kang) he said that the team “earned these results by working harder than anyone else, and even now they are continuing to work just as hard as other players. So to call them ‘washed up, nothing but big names’ really hurts my soul.”
SKT won the League of Legends world championships in 2013, 2015, and 2016, with legendary mid-laner Faker at the helm. In doing so, they secured a competitive legacy that few teams will ever be able to challenge.
(Rough translation) "They earned these results by working harder than anyone else, and even now they are continuing to work just as hard as other players. So to call them "washed up, nothing but big names" really hurts my soul." https://t.co/dJcTXb1MRK
— Ashley Kang (@AshleyKang) February 10, 2019
Bang and his bot-lane partner Wolf were part of that team for two of the world champion wins, and while the roster has changed significantly over the last year, SKT still has quite the hold on the wider esports scene.
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SKT is currently 4-2 in the LCK, behind the as-yet unbeaten Griffin and Sandbox Gaming. Over in the LCS, 100Thieves’ 3-3 record points them in joint third place, behind Cloud9 and Team Liquid.