There are graceful losers and then there are quitters – even esports pros aren’t immune to the odd overreaction to a bad game. Unfortunately, when your plays are being streamed and maybe even cast, everyone can see what’s going on – and that includes unfair or dramatic throws.
Losing is one thing, but "gifting" the enemy team kills, maps or games is another entirely. Here are some of the most notable unfair throws in esports history.
s1mple – ESL One Cologne 2019
One of the best CS:GO players in the world doesn’t seem like a likely candidate for a throw, but that’s exactly what he did in the map point against Team Liquid in that competition’s group stage. An epic moment – Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev vs Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella in what should have been an easy win for s1mple.
- READ MORE: The life and times of s1mple – Part 1
It wasn’t. Instead, in what ended up being a dramatic throw where s1mple tried to go for a knife kill, and got himself shot. Team Liquid made a comeback off this one throw and went on to win not just that map… but also the overall match.
Woshige – Evo 2015 Guilty:Gear Tournament
This throw is legendary in the fighting community – but not in a good way. Ryuichi "Woshige" Shigeno thought he had already won the match after an admittedly well-executed combo against Ken-ichi “Ogawazato” Ogawa. He stood up and faced the audience, cheering his win… only to discover that he had been wrong.
His opponent had used his gloating to stomp him into the ground before he even got back to his seat, and Woshige lost – the match and probably also some of his dignity as well.
Cloud9 – Overwatch Apex Season 2 in 2017
Sure, throwing a game by forgetting about the objective is embarrassing. Doing it twice is just odd… and doing it three times in one game leads to an in-game meme being born. Cloud9 lost not one, not two but THREE points in a row because they didn’t stay on the point.
While most players would probably rather be remembered for a win than a loss, the "C9" meme will forever remember what was probably one of Cloud9’s lowest moments ever – a meme to call out when someone loses because they forgot what the game was all about.
LGD and Invictus – LPL 2015 Spring Split
LGD versus Invictus – a worthy match-up for the Spring Split finals of that year’s League of Legends championship. It was memorable in so many ways… but the one that stands out the most is that both teams seemed keen to lose. We saw dramatic throw after dramatic throw. From horrible hero selects to wandering around the map with almost no health and right into enemy fire, everything that could go wrong did.
The reason? Neither team really wanted to win as it meant facing off against the strongest team at the time – EDG – in the playoffs! So both sides acted like they tried to win without trying at all. Eventually, officials actually stepped in since it was so obvious neither wanted to win. IG eventually "lost the fight to lose" and won the match – if you can call it a win!
Do you have a favorite throw in esports? How did that happen?
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