14. a separate league (summer week 1)
(Welcome back, summoners.)
After over twenty years of dedication, S., one of our paralegals, finally decided to move on to another company. On her last day, we took her out to margaritas (her request). Sitting around a tall glass pitcher of what turned out to be mostly tequila, trying to doctor our drinks with slices of lime to make it drinkable, we talked about all the people who had passed through the firm under her tenure. It was not the first going-away party this year, but we were sending off the person who had the most complete knowledge, our family historian if you will. I asked her to think of her platonic version of our department. If she could pinpoint one configuration that defined this department the most, the one she would see in her memories long after she retired, who would be in it? What would it look like?”
S. thought about it for a moment, then said, “Isn’t the answer always what the department was like when you first entered it? It would have been what the department was like when he first joined.” She used her glass to indicate our older partner.
“Before I was married,” he chimed in.
“I watched your children get born,” she said. “All of them.” (He has three of them, the oldest of whom is a junior in high school.)
“Before I even joined the firm as an associate,” our younger partner said. “You watched my children get born too.” (He has four of them, the oldest of whom — two fraternal girl twins — are eleven.)
“I wasn’t even alive then,” I joked. (It isn’t true. I’m older than eleven, or twenty.)
And so, of course, I thought of esports. (Wait, what?)
This split, Echo Fox announced the debut of their new challenger team roster: Dyrus, Scarra, Imaqtpie, Voyboy, and Shiphtur. In retrospect, the spring split seemed to be one long teaser for this roster, or at least for the return of Imaqtpie to competitive league: Doublelift and Imaqtpie constantly goaded each other on Twitch during Doublelift’s time off, Glixel published an amazing profile of Imaqtpie (complete with the following quote from Imaqtpie: “Sometimes I wish that I could play in the LCS and play some competitive games… I miss that a lot. Who knows. Maybe one day, I’ll try to return to it, but for the foreseeable future, I don’t see it happening"), and Team Liquid actually reached out to Imaqtpie to join their team after Piglet swapped to mid. Still, this roster came as a surprise, and everyone scrambled to publish a hot-take or a joke about it. Was this the ultimate dream stream meme team that would end NACS as we know it? Would they prove that even after all this time, they could still dominate
For a blog that’s titled “feelings diary,” it might be surprising to learn that no matter how hard I thought about this roster, and no matter how many comments on the Reddit thread I read or minutes I spent listening to others talk about it, I have to admit, I have no feelings about Delta Fox. (Well, I have feelings about capitalism. But that’s an entry for another time.) I wanted to, desperately. The existence of the roster feels like satire, a publicity move, a glove thrown down at the foot of the NACS scene, a revival/reboot of the weirdest order, all at the same time.
But watching highlights of their game on YouTube, even clips of their scrim against Echo Fox, made me feel unmoored. I could see that the jokes about about who would play which lane, the champions they hovered, the dragging of players they used to partner with in their ex-pro days, meant something — meant more than just something, was a short-hand for a shared language in a shared activity, a niche within a niche, like Twitch chat copypasta but in scarra and Imaqtpie’s distinct voices. But to me it was like watching a soap opera in another language. I knew the basics — I could read the mini-map, it was still the same League of Legends champions (only, you know, Swain and Gangplank). But that was it.
Sometimes we forget that memory is not the same thing as history. Recounting the progression of time and events is not the same as living in it. When we invest our feelings, we give context to cold, hard facts. I can read the wiki page for Voyboy, but as someone who never watched season 2, none of it makes sense to me. “Later,” one of the pages says very matter-of-factly, “as the toplaner for Curse, he was known for his Elise,” which sounds outlandish to someone who is used to Elise being in the jungle. Likewise, Shiphtur’s team history is riddled with names I’ve only just barely heard of — Team Dynamic, Good Game University, Team Cost, Apex Gaming — and his 2013 team achievements for Team Coast are in two leagues that no longer exist: ggLA Challenger Arena and North American Challenger League. With Imaqtpie and scarra, perhaps it is an issue of not watching enough streams.
But even if I were to watch all their games now, I suspect it still wouldn’t feel the same to me. I think I can never quite understand what it’s like for someone who got into League of Legends in 2012 to watch Delta Fox queue up to a NCS game, opposite Dandy and GBM. It will always feel a little academic, a little hypothetical, a lengthy cross-reference I can read but not understand.
I thought of this months ago, when this blog was a mere theoretical concept, and I had wanted, instead, to do a retrospective on all the intros made for the Korean competitive scene, both OGN and LCK, followed by mini-essays on the “themes.” The outlines for all these mini-essays still exist in an abandoned Google Doc. One of them (the bullet point reads when things fall apart, they come together in new and unexpected ways) became #12. Still others (in moments of great heartbreak we go back and assign false memories to everything that comes before. we give weight to things that were meant lightly and read into them a predictive power they never had, followed by the notes ssumday — hamilton — wait for it) may never come to fruition.
But one thing I remembered was an extended section labeled merely “losing context.” It was a collection of moments from the teasers that only unlocked themselves after weeks of trawling through the Team Liquid wiki or forums. For instance, this moment that begins at 0:26 in the 2016 summer split SpoTV intro. Shy opens a warehouse door and places his hand on Madlife’s shoulder. Madlife is seated in a simple chair — no bonjwa throne, but perhaps a nod to his status as a legendary support from the early days of professional Korean league. While the rest of CJ Entus is gathered around them, the screen suddenly cuts to Ambition. He and Madlife seemingly exchange intense gazes before the rest of Samsung file in behind Ambition.
It wasn’t until weeks later that I understood — Ambition had played for CJ Entus until 2015. This was him facing off against his old teammates and his old team, the team that Shy and Madlife rebuilt.
There are other moments: The 2016 spring split OGN intro, with Score and Madlife leading a cadre of progamers all arranged by order of debut. Longpanda in the 2013 winter OGN intro, scribbling across the screen, a nod to the infamous “Panda Note.” The empty armchair in the intro for ROX vs KT for the 2016 summer finals, a stand-in for Faker’s absence. I’m still convinced that the rose from the 2017 spring OGN intro, which appears before Marin and Faker face each other, is a call-back to SKT T1 K’s use of the rose icon to indicate their domination.
These are the things that are obvious to the contemporaneous viewer, but not to the one who must dig through the historical records trying to divine meaning. And even if I did sift through the wiki pages until I uncovered the references, I still will never feel it the way someone who lived Korean league at that time might feel. What will happen to the new fan two years later watching the 2017 spring finals intro? Even if they understood the meaning behind Smeb and Peanut facing each other in different jerseys, would it call up the same frisson of excitement it did in me? Would they be as delighted as we were to watch the other members of KT gather around KT’s core, Score? And when they see Blank introduced as just a name on the back of his jacket before turning around at the end to gaze soulfully at us, would they instantly think of Blank reprising both his and Bengi’s role from 2016, now both the right hand of Bengi and the right hand of God?
Many years ago, in high school, I was assigned John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, which, for those of you who are not the product of American high school education, is a novel about a young man who befriends a vibrant classmate in the summer between junior and senior year. Years later, the narrator returns to his high school and recounts his memories of being sixteen, the years of life during the war, and says:
In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left. . . . Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person ‘the world today’ or ‘life’ or ‘reality,’ he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.
So many “classic” novels feature the narrator going back to some monument of their past: I went back to the Devon School. I went back to Manderley. I went back to Brideshead. There are no high schools or museums or estates of esports that we can return to. But there are the memory palaces we build of what league looked like the day we entered. No matter how much the reality of competitive League of Legends may change, I think we keep returning to those memory palaces, using them as high-water marks. So you may always see Samsung White Dandy or MiG/Azubu Madlife, no matter how long they stay in NACS, if they stay at all. And you may still wait for the return of Maknoon or Reach or, hell, Cpt. Jack. You falsely believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the figures that loomed large over you when you first began remain preserved in resin. They blinked into existence with you, and you carry that stamp, forever.
Here are my high-water marks: SKT is the best team in the world, and always has been. CJ Entus and Najin are notable more for their failures than for their successes. G2 are the kings of Europe, and xPeke is a washed up razor model. Deficio has always been an articulate, mildly accented Dane in nice suits. All esports/League journalism is conducted by freelancers or the vertical of a larger online conglomerate; there is no fan community except through Twitter. All Star doesn’t count for anything except bragging rights. Riot launched a sinister plot to destroy Monte/DoA, and OGN in the process — if you disagree you’re Phreak. First brick, elemental dragons, and no Lulu in the midlane.
If I told you to close your eyes and paint me the platonic image of what League of Legends looks like, would it be the same? Probably not, huh? But this is the league I was born into. For me, it might as well never have existed in any other form. Maybe the truth is we are not all watching the same league, but rather living in our own separate leagues, which sometimes happen to overlap and exist in the same time. Delta Fox is a doubling, a folding-over, of someone else’s league on mine, just as one day, my league may double over onto someone else’s.
And I hope to god if that happens, someone will be streaming it.
POSTSCRIPT: Since publishing this, a number of you readers were wonderful enough to share your own “separate leagues” and the stories of how you got into competitive League of Legends, and I could not be more thrilled and thankful. I’ve collected them in a Twitter Moment, shared below, and I highly recommend anyone who has the time read these other “feelings diaries.” My story is not complete without your story, and it’s your stories that make sharing my story worth anything at all. As always, please let me know on Twitter (I’m at @txtdol) if you also have something you want to share!
