Dignitas’ LCS team has come under fire from the community for their bitter end to Mid Season Invitational. They lost 3-0 in disappointing fashion, including the most dominant loss to 100 Thieves in 26 minutes and 27 seconds. Fans took to Reddit and other social media to voice their frustration with the team, including calling for “Breaking Point 2.0,” a reference to Team Liquid’s 2016 documentary portraying members of the team, namely Dardoch, as immature, stubborn and all-around toxic. Several, including G2 Esports Coach Grabbz, described DIG Dardoch’s performance in Game 3 of the series as “griefing”.
Honestly, this series was rough to watch. The last game finished with a kill score of 22 to 4. On top of the actual gameplay, DIG lost in this fashion to 100 Thieves, a team who was facing similar negativity from the community just last week after losing 3-0 to Cloud9. It almost seems like 100T passed that bad karma onto DIG, and the co-streamers, casters, and other members of the LCS ecosystem are adding fuel to the fire for fans.
Congratulations to @FakeGod of @dignitas on winning the @MastercardNexus Player of the Week for week five of the 2021 #LCS Spring Split! #DIGWIN pic.twitter.com/KFOV2WpxOD
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) March 8, 2021
This is an unfortunate turn of events, considering just two weeks ago Dardoch and Neo won 3rd Team All-Pro for spring regular season. Every member except Soligo received numerous votes from media, casters, and teams towards All-Pro awards. FakeGod tied Alphari and PowerOfEvil for Player of the Game awards, while Dardoch, Neo, Aphromoo and Soligo each got at least one. Aphromoo and FakeGod even took home two of the five Player of the Week awards.
All of these accolades are just icing on the cake compared to the actual reality that DIG finished fifth in the regular season. They tied 100T with an 11-7 record, only one game from tying Team Liquid and TSM, and only two games off Cloud9 in first place. They won both matches versus TSM in the regular season, as well as Evil Geniuses, FlyQuest, Golden Guardians and Immortals. DIG never dropped lower than fifth place in the standings.
Compare that performance to the general preseason expectations. Oracles Elixir predicted DIG ninth place. Dot Esports placed them eighth. The Dive put DIG in ninth place. The Reddit poll expected them to finish eighth place. Well, the team far overperformed these expectations, and they did it in style. Dardoch played 11 unique picks in what was dubbed his “jungle A to Z challenge.” Neo had one of the highest KDAs in the LCS. Aphromoo had some of the highest kill participation in the league.
The Reddit community does not support removing import restrictions.
But most importantly, when DIG won games, they won as a team. No individual consistently carried. They did not top any stats as a team. They didn’t have the largest gold difference at 15 minutes or the highest baron control rate. While Travis Gafford and the community was voicing their concern around organizations’ discussions with Riot to remove import restrictions, DIG’s all-North American roster was holding their place in the top half of the standings against teams with more imports, higher budgets, and stronger footholds in the LCS.
However, none of this good will carried over into playoffs. One poor best-of-five was enough for North America to forget all the positives DIG brought to the table this year. This is a larger problem for the League of Legends community, but it’s disappointing to see such vitriol thrown at a team that truly surpassed expectations. DIG brought something new to the table. They gave no indicators up to this point that their players were not working well together. Hopefully, Dardoch, Aphromoo and crew can shake off the hate and level up this summer.
Stats from Games of Legends
Listen to The Liquid Lowdown Episode 7: https://www.spreaker.com/user/10719087/liquidlowdown7
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