League of Legends: Examining the IgNar and Sneaky Controversy

Former LCS star Sneaky recently clashed with FlyQuest’s IgNar and Santorin in an NA solo queue match. Here’s how it all unfolded.

Last week, former Cloud9 ADC, Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi, encountered FlyQuest’s support, Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun in a North American solo queue match. In a Sneaky YouTube video, IgNar and FlyQuest jungler, Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen, who were both on the same team as Sneaky, were criticized by the former pro for being toxic.

During the game, the team happened to have a heavy AD team composition, with Kennen being the only source of magic damage. This meant it was easy for the opposition to stack armor, making it practically impossible for the AD champions (Graves, Zed, and Caitlyn) to kill their opponents.

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IgNar and Santorin seemed to be upset with Sneaky because of his choice to build Blade of the Ruined King as a first item, indicating he would be building attack damage on the top laner. His justification for the build was his matchup against Sion, saying he would never be able to 1v1 him if he went an AP-centric build path.

The video went viral on Reddit, as the conversation of North American solo queue and toxicity is gaining steam. This movement to force Riot to change something about their report system to make solo queue a more productive environment came from former pro-turned-streamer, Joedat “Voyboy” Esfahani. The video made the community more aware of the blatant toxicity and trolling that is occurring in solo queue games regularly.

However, as the video is relatively recent, this has caused harmless statements and banter to be classified as toxic, such as this instance. It’s true that pros should be held to a higher standard, but their frustration was not extreme and understandable. Since there is now a heightened awareness of toxicity in North America, actions that would have previously been considered normal make the front page of Reddit.

The bigger issue with solo queue is the players who stop trying after something doesn’t go their way. This instance is not that. IgNar and Santorin both tried to win, ultimately doing so. None of the statements that were made warrant a punishment, they simply were confused and frustrated with Sneaky’s decision. Plus, they were probably right, in that his build did make the game more difficult to win.

After Sneaky and his editor received backlash for citing this interaction as harassment, it was instead categorized as flame, as a way to save face on the situation. There are definitely professional players that troll, endlessly flame, and don’t take solo queue seriously, but this isn’t an example of that.

So, let’s focus on fixing solo queue through improving the report system and making League a fun experience again, rather than witch hunting pros due to harmless banter.