How Tabe and Wh1t3zZ were forced out of OMG

Pun Wai “Wh1t3zZ” Lo and Pak Kan “Tabe” Wong are legendary figures in the Chinese League of Legends scene, though both have already retired. And while they’re best known for their time at Royal Club, the pair did have a short stint at OMG. Exactly what happened has never been clear—although it was clear it was ugly—and until now, neither of them had really explained it.

However, thanks to rumors that have popped up recently about the situation, White has finally stepped forward and written a lengthy explanation of what happened.

Wh1t3zZ says that when he and Tabe first joined OMG, they were given long-term contracts and specific assurances that the team composition would not be changed. If it were changed, the team’s owner promised that they would be compensated financially. He also promised, verbally, that their girlfriends could join the club and do PR.

But things went downhill quickly. Firstly, Wh1t3zZ, GoGoing, and Cool were constantly switching positions. Then the owner got rid of one player, and tried to get rid of Cool, although the team’s manager was able to block this. Then the owner demanded Cool be benched, and that Wh1t3zZ be cut from the team.

Wh1t3zZ says he and Tabe felt this constant lack of stability was harming the team’s development, and they got into a big argument with the owner. The owner, he says, made threats and refused to deliver on their contract’s promise that they would be compensated if the team composition was changed. They took to Weibo to explain their side publicly, and were forced off the team by the owner, who Wh1t3zZ says cut off the internet in their dorm prior to their leaving so that they couldn’t respond when he launched an online attack accusing them of being “Hong Kongers bullying Mainland Chinese,” “skipping training to hang out with their girlfriends,” “gambling”, etc.

In fact, things ended so badly that Wh1t3zZ says the former OMG owner was a big part of the motivation for he and Tabe joining Royal Club and achieving the success they did:

In the half-year after leaving [OMG], I was extremely depressed, and when Tabe called on me to go back to Royal Club, he said, “We’ve got to beat OMG, we’ve got to win the championship and show that shameless owner how wrong he was.”

Of course, this is all just one side of the story, and Wh1t3zZ does admit that he also made mistakes—his article opens with a long section about being young and foolish at the time. But his complaints about the OMG owner at that time have been echoed by other former players and personalities in the Chinese scene. The scandal has now long since passed, of course, but it’s interesting to get this new insight into an important piece of China’s League of Legends history.

(via Netease Games)

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