In a move akin to sharing training camp highlights after losing the Super Bowl, Romain Bigeard, General Manager of G2 Esports, took to Twitter to reveal the League of Legends team’s full scrimmage results for 2023. This decision comes just days after G2’s resounding elimination from the World Championship.
Understandably, the League of Legends community is deeply divided over this move. Notably, Steve Arhancet, owner of Team Liquid, expressed his disapproval of making scrimmage results public, even though the community may be interested in them.
Arhancet stated in a tweet, “Not a fan of posting scrimmage results while Worlds is still going on. Would have appreciated, as a courtesy, a heads up. What about all the other teams still competing? I get the community and fans want to see this, but that doesn’t make it right.”
Traditionally, scrimmage results have been a closely guarded secret within the League of Legends community, with teams typically keeping these outcomes confidential, especially when competing against international opponents. For a high-ranking figure like Bigeard to disclose scrimmage results not only from the international part of the schedule but for the entire 2023 season is an almost unprecedented move.
It’s understandable that certain teams would prefer to keep their scrimmage results private, particularly with the biggest tournament of the year still in progress. Notably, Team Liquid lost seven out of ten scrimmage matches played against G2, as revealed by Bigeard.
Nonetheless, it’s evident that scrimmage results didn’t significantly impact G2’s performance at the tournament. Despite their dominant performance in scrims, G2 struggled on the main stage, losing three consecutive best-of-three series and failing to qualify for the knockout stage on all three occasions. Intriguingly, G2 had a winning record in scrimmages against NRG Esports and Bilibili Gaming, and an even record against Gen.G. Ironically, these were the three teams that eliminated G2 from the World Championship.
The decision by G2 to disclose all their scrimmage results might encourage more teams to share their outcomes in the future, although this is doubtful. Many view G2’s move as lacking substance, particularly given their disappointing performance at the tournament. Furthermore, the mixed reaction from the community is likely to dissuade other teams from sharing their scrimmage results, as it remains somewhat taboo to do so. Sharing scrimmage results shortly after a historically poor on-stage performance is a challenging choice to justify, regardless of one’s stance on the matter.
The World Championship resumes tomorrow, November 2, with NRG and Weibo Gaming playing the first match of the quarterfinal round.