Forfeit: The rift between QG Reapers' Doinb and Newbee Gaming's Swift

Members of EDward Gaming’s 2016 LPL Spring starting lineup sat in their chairs on the lit stage, Kim “Deft” Hyukkyu tested his mouse and stared at his computer screen. The match couldn’t start until the team’s semifinal opponents, QG Reapers, the first seed of Group A, took their positions. Their chairs, across the gap in the stage where victors bowed gracefully at the end of the match, remained empty.

The crowd sat in the bleachers, craning their necks to see if the flicker to the right was Baek “Swift” Dahoon, QG Reapers’ star Korean jungler, climbing the stage. Those checking their phones scrolled through Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, and saw photos snapped by clandestine journalists backstage of a bored-looking Bae “Dade” Eojin. With the earlier announcement that Chinese substitute mid laner Huang “Mortred” Zikun had injured his hand, speculation that the legendary Dade would start as an emergency substitute seethed.

Fidgeting from both EDward Gaming and the audience continued for an hour after the semifinal between Team WE and Royal Never Give Up ended (two hours after the EDG vs QG match was scheduled to start). Eventually, a host climbed the stage, his fingers folded, to address the swell. “The semifinal match has been forfeited by QG Reapers,” he said to the bewildered stands. EDG Team Captain Ming “clearlove” Kai craned his neck in alarm to exchange an exasperated look with teammate Tong “Koro1” Yang. The host continued to explain that, because QG could not field a mid laner two hours after the scheduled start time, they forfeited the semifinal match, and EDward Gaming would advance to the final while QG dropped to the third place match.

The crowd in the Hong Qiao Shopping Mall stadium hummed with complaints, but quickly gathered their belongings and shuttled out to the Metro. This was the second ever playoffs forfeit in LPL history, following the disbandment of Royal Club Huang Zu after the Season 3 World Championship. QG Reapers, undefeated for nearly four weeks in 2016 LPL Spring and holders of first seed from Group A, forfeiting in the semifinal should have caused more of a stir, but it was almost expected.

Swift and Kim “Doinb” Taesang had been warring behind the scenes for weeks, resulting in Doinb’s disappearance from the starting roster and the team’s plummeting W-L record. In the coming weeks, journalists took testimonials from Swift and the rest of the team while Doinb flooded social media with chat logs, to the chagrin of fans and his former teammates. Their heavily publicized feud tore down a team that finished in second place in 2015 LPL Summer and topped their group in 2016 LPL Spring: a team primed to cement themselves as one of the strongest lineups in Chinese League of Legends history.

But it wasn’t always like this. When Doinb joined QG Reapers, then known as Qiao Gu, in 2015 LSPL Spring, he and Swift developed a quick and easy synergy. Swift engaged fights brashly, and Doinb followed easily, adding damage or providing peel if the initiation went sour.

“If Swift thinks there’s a good chance to engage,” Doinb told me when I visited Qiao Gu near the conclusion of 2015 Summer, “he will communicate that one or two seconds before the team fight, and I will just follow him if he goes in… I can communicate the best with Swift since we are both Korean.”

Doinb and Swift’s computer stations sat less than a foot from one another in the 2015 Qiao Gu house, and they bunched together with the Chinese to Korean translator, talking and laughing loudly while I interviewed the team’s bottom lane. Doinb was the most animated, gesturing wildly with his hands as Swift swiveled in his chair to talk to him.

Swift and Doinb’s jocularity translated well into in-game synergy. In 2015 and early 2016, Swift spent most of his time farming around the mid lane where Doinb pushed out aggressively, often opting for trades over creeps to bully the opponent. Both favored all-in champions, and their Nidalee and Kassadin composition featured beautiful coordination in dives and the chained use of the Zhonya’s Hourglass active.

“Doinb is the type of player who really wants to win lane and get the advantage,” Swift said to me when I visited the QG Reapers team again in 2016 Spring, shortly after Kim “BoriSal” Yeonghoon took over the starting mid lane role. “When Doinb is playing, I’m much more likely to try to help Doinb early and get Doinb snowballing, but when Borisal is playing, I’m much less likely to gank mid.”

When I visited QG a second time, in a new practice room inside an apartment building in Xuhui, the atmosphere felt like it had in 2015 — easy and playful — but Doinb was noticeably absent, only venturing downstairs when the team gathered to go out and celebrate Jian “Uzi” Zihao’s birthday.

The collapse in the team started with a decline in form from Doinb in the middle of the 2016 LPL Spring split. His flashy Leblanc performances had allowed him to rack up MVP awards for QG’s wins, but his play became noticeably sloppier. Rumors began to circulate that a conflict was brewing between the jungle and mid lane duo over Doinb’s girlfriend. Doinb was allegedly spending too much time with his girlfriend, causing a decline in form and a rift between himself and the team’s jungler.

Following a dismal showing at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, Uzi took over as QG Reapers’ starting AD carry in the LPL. The synergy between Swift and Doinb struggled in-game as Doinb lost more of his lanes and demonstrated gaps in his champion pool with continuous out-of-meta Viktor picks.

“If you look at my Chinese account record,” Doinb said later on Weibo, “I practiced only Mid Quinn, and I had good win rates with Quinn and Gragas in scrims. However Swift suddenly got hooked on Kindred and Graves, and he told me that if I went Mid Quinn, it would be an all AD comp and we wouldn’t be able to kill the tank in the other team. I wasn’t able to play Quinn a single time since then.”

In their clash, Doinb accused Swift of simply dictating pick and ban and not listening to the coach’s choices, pigeon-holing him into a pool he didn’t practice. Swift responded in an interview with 15w after the fallout with “During the pick-ban phase, I will take the initiative to share my thoughts but I wouldn’t specifically tell the coaching staff what to do, and I wouldn’t just pick what I wanted.”

Swift and Doinb’s behind-the-scenes clashes came to a head between Week 7 and Week 9 when BoriSal started for the team. Their performances went from limping and plodding to stuck and bleeding with losses to bottom table team Energy Pacemaker All and a three game series against Masters3 culminating in a final loss to Team WE.

“I do think it’s better if Doinb plays with Peco and Uzi plays with Borisal,” Swift told me before playoffs began, trying to mask the conflict, “since if Doinb and Peco play, we can focus more resources mid, and if Borisal is playing mid and Uzi is playing bottom, we can focus more resources in the bot lane.”

The setup didn’t quite fall into place. By placing first in Group A, QG Reapers guaranteed themselves a spot into the semifinal, and by the day of the semifinal, according to Doinb, the team had concocted a plan to fly in Dade for the starting lineup, despite him having left the team earlier that split.

On the morning of the match, Chinese substitute mid laner Mortred, having played a smattering of games to make communication easier, suffered a hand injury and had a note from a physician stating that he couldn’t play. BoriSal suddenly ended his contract and “was unable to arrive at the stadium on time.” As Doinb had been suspended by the team for misconduct, QG Reapers appealed to the LPL to allow an emergency mid laner. Dade flew in from Korea and waited patiently in the hall to hear the verdict before the LPL host slipped on stage to alert the crowd the match would not take place. A team with three mid laners on the roster and emergency sub was unable to field a full roster on the day of the match.

“Nobody contacted me during all that commotion,” Doinb said later on Weibo. “Doinb do you want to play? We are forfeiting? Nothing, no messages at all.”

Though on the day only irate fans resulted from the forfeit, following the third place match where AD carry Yu “Peco” Rui (now known as Happy) played mid lane Viktor, Lucian, and Lissandra, the social media fallout was explosive. Chinese media website 15w interviewed Swift and the rest of the QG Reapers team regarding Doinb’s accusations that Swift forced him from the team.

According to Doinb and ex-substitute jungler Im “Tom” Jaehyeon, Swift controlled the team, refused to play with Dade, and would not renew his contract if a substitute jungler was present, which lead to them leaving QG earlier that split shortly after their initial signing. They also claimed he didn’t listen to the coach and played whatever he wanted in his matches. Swift responded in the interview with 15w by denying these claims and painting Doinb in a fame-oriented and greedy light.

“I also heard the manager say that after Doinb had a large audience for his stream,” Swift said, “he raised unreasonable demands with the team about the split from streaming. He demanded an answer by 3/19, before the match with IG, or else he wouldn’t play. Doinb was subbed out because he raised unreasonable demands with the management, not because of me, I don’t have this kind of power.”

Other members of the team and organization corroborated many of Swift’s words, referring to Doinb’s frequent fits about not getting his way or his passive aggressive behavior when asked to stream more quietly. QG’s former team leader added “When we went out for competitions or for events, he’d always demand the club help his girlfriend book tickets and hotels. After QG was purchased by NB, he asked the boss to help him buy a car, and he was very enthusiastic about streaming, because the gifts you get from streaming are solely owned by yourself.”

Shortly after the interview materials were published, Doinb responded by flooding his weibo with screenshots of conversations he had with teammates on Wechat, a Chinese messaging program. He denied accusations regarding his greedy behavior and showed logs of Swift behaving hostilely toward him. Swift urged Doinb to retract his statements and apologize publicly, taking full blame for the incidents to save his reputation.

The logs also included conversations with QG’s manager, Li “LiNkO” Linke, using phrases like “Fucking shit really I can’t hold it anymore, how the fuck did you become a manager I don’t know, but how do you have zero sense of responsibility?” and insisting “I won’t be controlled by you,” threatening to go over his head to Newbee’s boss or the League of Legends Association of Chinese Esports. The dispute, Swift implied, was over pay he was still owed from streaming.

In the logs Doinb released with other teammates, he was sharing small talk or discussing leaving QG with Happy and the rest of the team without Swift. Doinb’s Chinese teammates responded on Weibo that they didn’t approve of his conduct in airing dirty laundry and dragging disagreements into the public eye.

Doinb likely expected this. Chinese cultural values frown upon whistleblowers as trouble makers. In his original post, he concluded, “I also understand that if I were to leave QG like this (Exposing team from the inside) it would be harder for me to find a team in the Chinese scene… Chinese teams will see me as a whistleblower and will look at me badly, but I thought that I would at least be able to fight the false claims the team put out for me. I will try to keep playing as a pro in the Chinese scene if possible.”

On April 25, Doinb started his stream. Speaking in Mandarin Chinese, he suddenly broke down and sobbed on his webcam, telling fans this would probably be his last stream. He doubted other Chinese teams would take an interest in him, and there’s no way he could play with QG Reapers again.

“Don’t cry,” fans typed in chat repeatedly. “Keep fighting!”

Shortly after, the Newbee organization decided to rebrand from QG Reapers to Newbee Gaming, casting aside the association with the broken jungle and mid duo. They formalized the signing of Dade, backing Swift over Doinb. It appeared as if Doinb’s career had ended. Despite being loved by Chinese fans for learning Mandarin Chinese and streaming frequently, Doinb would likely disappear from the scene.

On May 17, before the start of the new season, the QG Reapers weibo rustled from its period of silence to list a new roster for the coming split. This wasn’t surprising, as I knew of Manager Li “LiNkO” Linke’s desire to start again from scratch with the QG brand. What was surprising, however, was that “Doinb” was listed as the starting mid laner above long-time QG substitute, “Cherish.”

The intention was to rebrand the team as QG Reapers before the new season, as the former QG owner had purchased the spot from Newbee, but due to missing the registration deadline, QG retained the Newbee Young name and branding for the 2016 LPL Summer split. The team added high ranked Korean jungler, Kim “Clid” Taemin, ex-LGD Gaming and Hyper Youth Gaming top laner, Xu “ss17” Zhao, AD carry Wang “Alone” Zijun, and another name viewers hadn’t seen in a long time: Liu “AhrI” Xudong as support.

AhrI, team captain of WE Academy during their nearly flawless 2014 LSPL Spring run, left the team over a disagreement with AD carry Han “S1mlz” Jin, now playing for Oh My God. AhrI wanted to spend more time with his girlfriend and took up casting. When WE Academy joined LPL that summer without AhrI, they finished bottom two and had to play the Expansion Tournament to re-qualify for the league.

LiNkO and Doinb, the two most publicly abused by Swift, lead Newbee Young, the new QG Reapers, through 2016 LSPL Summer. They selected Tom, the previous substitute jungler who spoke out against Swift, as the team’s coach.

Their rise wasn’t as flawless as the first time, but they met Young Glory, 2016 LSPL Spring’s second place team, in the final for a grueling five game series. After a dramatic Baron throw in Game 5, NBY qualified directly to 2017 LPL Summer. The QG weibo instantly returned to life after a split of silence with a photo of the new team hoisting the LSPL trophy with the caption “The baby is back.”

“The first time I entered the LSPL stadium [this split],” LiNkO said in an interview with Esports Focus, “I told Doinb that the trophy was ours, and we had to lift it back to LPL.”

Doinb has continued his appeal to fans, streaming frequently and telling Esports Focus, “I want to become a Chinese son-in-law.” Both he and LiNkO have apologized for disappointing fans of their former team and appeal for a chance to win them over again.

Much of QG’s media presence marketed them as a comeback team. Each of the players were given a “second chance” to succeed, much like members of the original QG lineup, Happy and Zhang “Mor” Hongwei, who had played in LPL before, but had not found success on bottom tier teams.

In keeping with this theme, the team signed ex-Oh My God support, retired at the end of 2015, Hu “Cloud” Zhenwei. Cloud, blamed partly for causing conflict within OMG in 2014, was frequently benched for Fang “Dada777” Hongri. Alleged clashes with jungler Yin “Loveling” Le split the team during their 2014 World Championship semifinal against Star Horn Royal Club.

As if orchestrated intentionally, a day later, Newbee Gaming announced the signing of Yu “Cool” Jiajun, Oh My God mid laner rumored to have been a major figure in the team’s internal conflicts in 2015. As the two remaining active members of the 2014 OMG roster, Cool and Cloud added to the rivalry effortlessly, and the reason for replacing Dade was obvious.

A team like QG Reapers with a weaker roster on paper shouldn’t have been a match for a team that placed near the top of the standings two splits running, but a single mid lane player change tipped the scales. Newbee Gaming, with the addition of Dade over Doinb, placed bottom two in Group A of 2016 LPL Summer, the group considered the weakest in the league. In a final three-game series against Invictus Gaming, Newbee were slated to face relegation.

After losing 3-1 to LGD Gaming, Newbee breezed past third place LSPL team Star Horn Royal Club to keep their place in LPL secured, but it was still a mark the team would bear. Without Doinb, they had failed horrifically. When Swift engaged fights, Dade didn’t follow up, which punished his more questionable decisions. Dade didn’t play to win lane, and with the bottom lane also more geared toward team fighting than laning phase, Newbee plummeted in the standings, unable to lane or team fight as well as they had with an aggressive mid laner.

With 26.9 percent of team damage, a DPM for the split of 577, and a CS@10 minutes on average of -6.74 (16th of the 18 mids who played in the LPL), Dade announced he would leave Newbee when his contract expired. Despite Cool’s equally poor performance in LPL in 2016, it was obvious the roster needed a change. Cool, however, isn’t the only new mid laner to join Newbee and significantly further the rivalry against the rising QG Reapers.

When Swift first debuted in Champions Korea, he did so on a team called Xenics Storm. The team’s mid laner was Shin “Coco” Jinyeong. Their phenomenal synergy caught the eye of CJ Entus, and they became starters for the Frost team the next Champions split.

“When I was playing with Coco, it was very easy to play with him because he was experienced and very skilled,” Swift told me at the end of the 2016 LPL Spring split. “It was comfortable. I got the sense that it was really Coco helping me and not me helping out my mid… With Doinb and Borisal, I felt that the relationship reversed. I feel it’s more about me helping out my mid laner instead of the mid laner helping me. Because I have more experience than Doinb or Borisal and because I’ve played more games, it’s more difficult to play with them compared to playing with Coco.”

Rumors that Coco would come to Newbee or QG Reapers when Swift was part of the organization circulated throughout 2015 and 2016. Many fans suspected that, if given the opportunity, Swift would play with Coco again.

Yet at the start of 2016, when contemplating whether or not he would sign with QG again, Swift told Doinb on Wechat, “Just looking at mid, you are the most comfortable. Not about skill or anything, but we have been playing together for long, so our personalities — it’s best if we play together.”

This particular change in Swift’s tact was something Doinb dwelled on the most in his personal posts regarding the situation. “A person I considered friend last season, telling me things like ‘It would be hard without you’ ‘You are the most comfortable to play with,’ now says things like ‘I will never play with Doinb again.’ I really really hate that my career is being manipulated by one player’s wish,” Doinb said on Weibo.

Swift and Doinb were friends for much of their time playing together. Both players have testified to their previous close relationship, but no matter who one sides with in the fallout, the reality is that their war destroyed an LPL team worthy of contending for the top of China. Both players studied Mandarin Chinese hard to invest in building team cohesion, and both players will start over as enemies with new rosters in the coming season. With the final group draw placing both QG and Newbee in Group B, they will face each other at least twice in the Summer split.

“I always consider [the former QG] my teammates” Doinb told Esports Focus upon re-qualifying for the LPL. “I also don’t feel separated from them. Right now, I only focus on the match. If they lose [to me], my heart will be quite lost.”

LiNkO echoed Doinb’s sentiments. “If any of the old QG come back, no matter who, I would want them.”

Regardless of the victor, when the first best-of-three concludes, fans of QG Reapers will once again crane their necks expectantly. This time, to catch the handshake between Doinb and Swift, the mid laner and the jungler who caused the only League of Legends playoffs forfeit of 2016.

You can follow Kelsey Moser on Twitter @karonmoser.