Will this impact his future career?
C9 EMENES Gets Punished For Toxic Behavior
C9 EMENES had problems with toxicity in the past. When he was picked up by Cloud9, there were concerns among the fans.
League of Legends and toxicity is a thing that is unfortunately very difficult to separate. Everyone knows the people in their SoloQ who say bad things about you or just prefer to intentionally give the win to the opponents. Although a large part of the light toxicity has been removed by the ping update, the chat is still not primarily for responsible communication.
But what happens when people who make money from the game and have a role model function for the community are toxic?
Who Is C9 EMENES?
EMENES (22) is a pro-player from South Korea who started his career in 2019. Initially known as “Viole”, he joined Gen.G Academy. Whether his IGN was due to “Violent” remains speculation, but it would be fitting. After Gen.G and he parted ways, he renamed himself to EMENES, which refers to his initials Min-Soo (M and S).
Initially, he was active as a temporary sub for Kingzone DragonX, who won the Worlds last year under the name DRX. At that time, players such as Deft, Rascal, and Cuzz played there.
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After that, he played for some lesser-known teams, with Legacy E-Sports from Australia and JDXL, the second XL team, standing out. In November 2022, C9 Academy recruited him because EMENES had a reputation as an insane player.
Moving forward to February 2023, EMENES replaced the German player Diplex as the starting mid-laner for Cloud9. Together, they were able to position themselves as number 1 in both the Spring and Summer Split. In the LCS 2023 playoffs, they lost to the underdog team NRG with a score of 1-3 and thus only took second place. However, they are qualified for Worlds.
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Toxic Behavior In The Past
EMENES is described as a very selfish player who doesn’t get along well with his teammates. He was even benched at JDXL for this reason. Also, he was released by his team in week 5 of the split at Legacy due to the same problems.
However, Cloud9 has a history of giving toxic players a chance and making them shine in a positive team environment. The best example of this is Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen, who was known as Incarnati0n at the time. He received a competitive ban due to his toxicity but was able to establish himself as one of the best mid-laners of all time in NA through Cloud9.
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Recent Drama With Spear Shot
EMENES played a game with the streamer Spear Shot. Spear Shot is an EUW Pantheon OTP in Challenger and has 150,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. Spear Shot played on the Korean server and was warmly welcomed by EMENES with the words “classic disgusting EU streamer” and “go your country plz”. These words are very xenophobic and were also mocked by the community, as EMENES spent most of his career outside his home country, Korea.
Spear Shot responded on Twitter and shared EMENES’s toxicity, which sparked an outcry on Reddit.
C9 EMENES Apology
EMENES responded to this outcry from the community and apologized to Spearshot and his fans. He will work on himself in the future and not let such an incident happen again. This shows that EMENES still values his career. Whether he has really thought about the incident and changed his attitude can only be said by EMENES himself.
However, even though EMENES apologized, this does not protect him from punishment. Riot Games imposed a fine of $15,000 in a competitive ruling.
Will It Impact His Career?
Honestly, not much will change. As long as EMENES continues to perform, Cloud9 will not kick him off the roster. Of course, the community now has a more negative image of him than before. However, it was already known that EMENES is generally a difficult person, and such behavior was almost expected. In League of Legends, there is an unhealthy behavior where players can be toxic as long as they bring victory. Decent human interaction is then put on the back burner.
We can only hope that EMENES has really learned from his mistakes and is moving towards a bright future full of positivity.