LoL: Schalke suspends professional just 4 hours before an important match – because he flamed a flamer: “Untermensch”
In League of Legends, the German team Schalke 04 is currently playing in the EU Masters, a kind of European cup for LoL. Just 4 hours before their first match, they suspended their French jungler Ismail “Isma” Boualem. He had insulted another player in a match in the solo queue. You don’t tolerate that.
This is the situation at Schalke:
- The football club Schalke bought into the European professional league in LoL, the LEC, in 2016 and played in the league for years with moderate success. In 2021, however, the place in the LEC was sold to Switzerland because money was needed to cushion relegation from the Bundesliga during the corona pandemic.
- Despite many departures, Schalke managed to set up a powerful team in 2022, which was able to work its way up to second place in the German Prime League in the playoffs. The crowd favorite Eintracht Spandau was defeated.
- Due to the good placement in the league, Schalke was able to qualify for the EU Masters, which is a kind of European Cup where the best teams in Europe compete against each other – with the exception of the professional teams of the LEC.
Eintracht Spandau are the crowd favorites in Germany – alongside the NNO team:
Schalke suspends junglers – without much explanation
That was Schalke’s decision: On August 29, Schalke released a statement on Twitter (via twitter):
An incident occurred earlier today that prompted us to release Isma with immediate effect. We ask for your understanding that we are currently unable to comment on the background.
Why was that problematic? Schalke is currently playing in the group stage of the EU Masters.
If a central regular player is absent, this can hardly be compensated for by a LoL team, because the team trains and plays as a unit:
- There are substitute players in LoL, but it’s not like a football team, where there are constant changes.
- Normally, five regular players play through every match in a season.
- It is actually only changed in the event of injuries, suspensions or drastic crises in form during a current season – or if a player urgently needs a holiday.
Therefore, Schalke’s decision to suspend a player was controversial. Precisely because Schalke initially did not comment on why they had suspended Isma.
What is a flame? In gamer-speak, the word “flame” denotes an irrelevant statement intended to offend or provoke others. Someone who is particularly blatant or who “flames” frequently is known as a “flamer”. In gaming, there are “tolerated forms” of flames among friends that somehow belong to gaming. That’s friendly teasing. Flames that “will not be tolerated” include statements that are homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, or anything related to “real life”.
Jungler totally disagrees with suspension – Only “very common Flames”
This is how the player reacts: The jungler expressed disagreement with Schalke’s decision to take him out of the team.
He said: He was suspended just 4 hours before the match against Gmaesward. He confessed to flamed a player named Nyro in a game of SoloQ.
Isma said: He shouldn’t have done that, but sometimes you just give in to emotions and he’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.
But he also said: He had not flamed so badly, neither racist nor homophobic. It was “very common flaming”.
However, he does not agree with the decision: it is his first offense and now his teammates are being hit so hard. According to Isma, an apology would have been enough, after all he had not been warned by Schalke beforehand.
It’s a big disappointment for me. The EU Masters was what we achieved in the season. It’s incredibly frustrating to have put my teammates in this situation.
Isma
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Twitch streamer shows how the Schalke player flamed him
What did he do? The player he fell out with in Solo-Q is twitch streamer Nyro. The popped up in the tweet from Isma and posted 7 screenshots showing parts of the chat history.
From the images it appears that Isma used various insults:
- “Nyro, I spit on you fat monkey.”
- “Nasty, you’re fat in real life”
- “You stream for 300 monkeys to watch and be happy”
- “subhuman” (sbuhman)
Just “Untermensch” pointed out Nyro. That is “racist and anti-Semitic” – that is not a “very common Flame”.
Here’s the catch with the story: Nyro’s post immediately reveals that only Isma’s insults can be seen in the chat, Nyro’s own verbal contributions are missing.
Therefore suspected on Twitter that the screenshots certainly showed a wrong picture. Because Nyro is also well known as a flamer in LoL and it is assumed that he also used swear words so that Isma escalated like this.
But LoL players say: Even with Isma, it is by no means the case that he once flamed and was punished for it immediately, but otherwise is always a model citizen. Because Isma should also enjoy a reputation as a flamer in the Solo-Q.
As can be seen from tweets and Reddit posts, both players, Nyro and Isma, are decried as “Flamer” on the EUW server. Apparently the situation escalated when they met.
Schalke’s decision is controversial
How is this discussed? It’s quite controversial.
There are some players, like LoL pro Broxah, who are fully on Schalke’s side and say: Isma’s Flames were “racist”, that’s not acceptable and should be punished. One has respect for Schalke for this decision.
Others say: Well, if you know Nyro and how he behaves, then that’s a “big loss” for Schalke. The whole team was punished here. That was a slap in the face of the Schalke players.
In any case, things are not looking good for Schalke in the group phase. Lost 2 of the first 3 games. If this continues, that’s it for the season.
Schalke says: This is real life – things we say count
Schalke said at the end: After the turmoil on Twitter, Schalke decided to make a detailed statement about the suspension.
They say Schalke is a football club. You know that LoL is different than football. An insult in LoL may have a different weight than in the world in which Schalke operates worldwide. Nevertheless, everyone is judged by the same standards and I have always said this to everyone:
We do not stand for hate and toxic behavior. Everyone at Schalke – players, managers, employees, board members – is asked to internalize this. We have recorded this as our mission.
Schalke
Schalke ends the message: This is real life and the things we say count.
LoL is known for being flamed regularly:
14-year-old LoL player wins flame duel against feared Twitch streamer
Reference-mein-mmo.de