As the number one gossip king in the League of Legends community, whenever there’s a huge piece of news in the LPL, Kanavi is the first to go to his super topic to learn the details—whether it's "Rookie's breakup" or "TheShy's return." Kanavi gets the scoop right away and tells his friends, and he even discusses these topics with his audience while streaming. Recently, the biggest hot topic in the LPL circle has been TES being eliminated after losing to Vietnam during MSI.

As a former TES jungler, Kanavi immediately went to the super topic to catch up on the drama, and even responded to the real reason behind TES’ loss to Vietnam during an interview with LPL esports journalist Wang Weichen. Kanavi believes that while TES players are very strong in skill, their mental state tends to be fragile. He thinks the TES players were affected by G2’s reverse sweep from 2–0 down, which caused them to lose to the Vietnamese team. Kanavi’s words reminded many viewers of last year’s First Stand tournament, where some TES members’ mental breakdowns led to the team’s total collapse.

Finally, during the interview, Kanavi also talked about his biggest opponent at this MSI. He considers BLG more threatening than T1, especially because BLG’s jungler XUN has been performing exceptionally well in recent matches. Kanavi hopes XUN will make mechanical mistakes when facing him. In recent years, XUN has lost more often than he has won against Kanavi, but XUN’s synergy and teamwork with BLG players are definitely more polished than Kanavi’s. So I’m really looking forward to the match between XUN and Kanavi. (What do you think—who is the stronger jungler, XUN or Kanavi?)

Miller fulfills his promise to shave his head

TES was once recognized as the LPL's "weak-team crusher." Many viewers believed that although TES might not beat G2, they would easily handle wildcard and North American teams. That’s why many League of Legends streamers made bold pledges before the event—for example, Zz1tai said he would do 100 squats while holding Cube if TES lost to Vietnam. Among them, LPL caster Miller vowed that if TES failed to reach the MSI semifinals, he would shave his head and dye his hair.

But what amused many viewers was that TES unexpectedly crashed out of the MSI semifinals. Miller then fulfilled his promise this afternoon by going live to shave his head and dye his hair red. During the stream, he joked that he would never forget TES losing to Vietnam. You have to admit, Miller’s head-shaving stunt was really entertaining—many viewers sent gifts to support him, while plenty of bullet comments teased him, saying, “This is what you get for supporting TES.”

Recently, I’ve seen many insiders from the League scene reveal that ES is looking to buy a support during the current transfer period. Honestly, TES is truly a team full of “legends.” In the first split, there were rumors about jungler Cream match-fixing, and even AD player Jiaqi suggested that Guo Hao thoroughly investigate the support position. Yet, despite all that, TES management still chose not to replace the support and kept Fengyue as the starter for the second split. Now that TES has become the “Vietnamese underdog,” they suddenly decide to look for a new support.

Conclusion

Of course, I won’t blame the rookie players for TES’ loss to Vietnam—after all, the LPL hasn’t seen many new faces in recent years. Even though Fengyue and Zuian performed poorly at MSI, I still hope TES will focus on nurturing them in the future, since everyone goes through a “rookie phase.” Personally, I’m really curious why other strong LPL teams always get crushed when they face TES. If those strong teams could beat TES, then TES wouldn’t get the chance to come to international tournaments and embarrass the region. (When you think about it, it’s really absurd that TES made it to MSI with two rookies.)