Update: Emenes has been linked with a move to Cloud9 in the North American LCS.
Excel Esports have benched Korean mid-laner Jang ‘Emenes’ Min-soo (pictured) from their JD XL academy team.
The news comes after rumblings of poor communication and attitude from Emenes behind the scenes.
Sources told Esports News UK that Emenes was not an easy teammate to get along with, and that at times he had displayed toxic behaviour and went on mute during official matches. Another source said he would stay up until the late morning talking to friends.
Sources added that Emenes’ English wasn’t great and that he had struggled to adapt to the team’s communication over the season. ENUK understands there were differences between Emenes and the team.
However, there is no doubting Emenes’ talent on the rift. He’s one of the best raw talents JD XL have had, and we understand he had beaten the likes of Caps in scrims. It may be his style clashed with other players and coaches at Excel, and that another team will be the right fit for him that allows him to thrive.
Excel announced Emenes’ benching on Twitter in this statement, which did not come as a surprise to the community judging from the responses and comments:
Excel have announced that Polish player Adrian ‘Mrozku’ Skonieczny has been subbed in. Mrozku previously stepped in for Emenes last week on July 13th, when JD XL lost to Nyyrikki.
Mrozku will play with JD XL for their next match against bottom-of-the-table Singularity at 7pm BST tonight (July 20th 2022). Update: Excel lost to Singularity.
JD XL coach Torok said Mrozku needs time to settle in:
The benching also comes after a 1/9/6 performance from Emenes as Taliyah on Monday’s loss to Bifrost. Emenes was making mechanical misplays, which is unlike him.
After the game, Eragon, on the NLC desk, said:
“Emenes looked tilted. When you’re tilted, you keep trying to kill your lane opponent over and over again, and that’s what it looked like. He just kept going for it, and he kept dying.”
Eragon, NLC
Emenes joined Excel in early 2022 from Galakticos, where he showed promise in the Turkish Championship League with a third-place finish in the Summer Split.
The problems don’t seem to be exclusive to Excel.
An article from 2020 by Snowball Esports about Emenes with Legacy Esports, read: “A series of issues with mid-laner Emenes emerged and came to a head after week 5 [of the OCL, which was later shut down before being replaced by the LCO]. He was released from the team, with head of esports Tim ‘Carbon’ Wendel explaining in a statement that the decision was made “in the best interests of the team and with a view to creating an environment capable of sustained success going forward”.
Emenes also said he was dissatisfied with OCE solo queue.
JD XL still sit top of the NLC European Regional League for Northern Europe, with 12 wins and three losses, with two of those losses coming over the past week.
What Excel said on Emenes’ benching: ‘LoL is a team game, and as an organisation you have a responsibility for the rest of the team to be in a healthy environment’
We spoke with Excel Esports COO Tim Reichert for more context on Emenes’ benching
Tim said: “At the end, it’s not as bad as some people make it. Emenes is very quiet, and very stubborn in his gameplay ideas. With that said, a teammate where all other four players plus coaches at some point could not continue working with him, and the reality is League of Legends is a team game.
“If there is a player who is not willing to bring in what a team needs, then at some point, actions have consequences.
“We really tried a lot for more than one split to make it work, because we do think he’s an extraordinarily strong player, from just raw skill, he is easily an LEC or LCS player. But he just refused to be a good team player. And at some point it was also very much about the team, and we want to have a good team environment and culture. We do have that with the LEC team.
“We actually brought him to Berlin because we felt maybe in that environment it would work better. But in that last game where he just ran it down, it was a bit of, enough is enough.
“We really tried a lot for more than one split to make it work, because we do think he’s an extraordinarily strong player, from just raw skill he is easily an LEC or LCS player. We actually brought Emenes to Berlin because we felt maybe in that environment it would work better. But in that last game where he just ran it down, it was a bit of, enough is enough.”
Tim Reichert, Excel Esports
“He tried in his way, it just didn’t work out with the rest of the team. And it wasn’t just him, in the spring split we had other different players and it didn’t work with them, so it feels horrible, because I like Emenes as a person, at least when he’s not in game, but in game it did not work out.
“Maybe if all four other players had a different personality, it might’ve worked. But if all four plus coaches cannot continue like that, then there’s something wrong. And as an organisation you also have a responsibility for the rest of the team to have them in a healthy environment.”
Lastly, Tim spoke about Excel’s LEC team suffering a couple of back-to-back defeats last weekend.
He said: “We will get back this weekend, I’m quite sure about that. There will always be setbacks in the season, but we will be back in shape this weekend.”
Further reading: ‘We can do a lot of damage to our opponents this year, it’s not even about playoffs anymore’ – Excel Esports COO Tim Reichert on goals for the LEC Summer 2022 Season and beyond
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
