iG LoL team's troubles continue at IEM World Championship, PDD shows his frustration

Yesterday, I wrote about iG.lol’s troubles in China’s professional League of Legends league, the LPL. A video shows the team clearly down in the dumps, with top laner and team captain PDD admonishing his players about how little they seem to want to play.

(See: Invictus Gaming’s LoL team on verge of breakup heading into IEM tournament (VIDEO))

Early on in today’s IEM Worlds, it looked like I was an idiot after iG stomped European pro club Fnatic in their early game, but in the team’s second matchup, against Korea’s KT Rolster Bullets, things fell apart.

iG actually started the game off incredibly well, and looked poised to win before an early baron attempt backfired, resulting in a four-kill swing that negated most of iG’s baron buffs and swung the gold balance back in KTB’s favor. A second baron attempt for iG went just as badly, with KTB’s jungler inSec jumping in to steal the kill at the last second. Ultimately, it was a close match, but the two baron mistakes and some poor rotations proved too much to recover from, and KT Rolster Bullets walked away with the win.

The result secures a playoff spot for KTB, who also won an earlier match against Europe’s Millennium. For iG to advance now, the team will have to either beat Fnatic again or take on Millennium, depending on which team wins that matchup.

iG will be the favorite to win that match regardless of which European team it ultimately has to play, but it’s clear that the team was frustrated by the loss. In the post-game, Invictus Gaming captain PDD blatantly refused to shake the hands of any KT Rolster Bullets players. It certainly seemed to be a display of poor sportsmanship, given that just a couple hours earlier he had been happy to shake hands with Fnatic following iG’s victory over them.

Personally, I think PDD’s lack of sportsmanship and grace in defeat belies the morale problems facing the team. It also leads me to wonder whether the best thing for iG might not be a change in leadership. PDD may be upset about the way his team was playing, but as captain, the early baron attempt that shifted the game in KTB’s favor was almost certainly his call.

If he is upset about the loss, he likely has no one to blame but himself. And given iG.lol’s terrible performance in the LPL recently, I wonder if it might not be time for a new team captain.