Early morning on March 2nd, an unexpected roster shakeup shocked the entire community of LCS fans. Echo Fox’s jungler Rush announced via Twitter that the team had decided to bench him for the upcoming games.

Our coaching staff decided to play Panda for tomorrow's LCS match. so I won’t be playing tomorrow. I have struggled with so many issues recently, But i strongly believe i will eventually overcome all of these bad things!

Sorry for making you guys disappointed though 😦 — Yoonjae Lee (@Rush0406) March 2, 2019

Support began pouring in for Rush, the “kind boy” of the LCS. He explains that he’s been struggling with many issues, but doesn’t elaborate further. For him, this is a chance to reset and improve himself in whatever aspects he believes he needs. For Echo Fox, their decision came from a lack of consistency and teamwork seen from all players. Fox’s players often talked about how the team would be split. While the majority of the team did one thing, Rush did his own. This resulted in many viewers and analysts questioning what was going on with him. Is he bad now? Is he washed up? Does he hate his teammates? None of those questions likely results in an answer of “yes.” In fact, it can be argued that Rush was playing somewhat well.

Rush places near the top of all junglers in Kill Participation, Gold Differential at 10, XP Differential at 10, and CS Differential at 10. His damage share is right around where all other junglers are, with a 13.1% share. He also has less gold share than many other junglers, at 8th highest if we don’t include Blaber (who played one game). His KDA is lower than most junglers, but he stays around the middle of the pack. All in all, it’s difficult to argue that he was doing that poorly. Sure he had his boneheaded plays (AFKing and getting killed by Froggen), but his individual performance was fairly decent.

So if his individual performance isn’t lacking that much, it has to be his teamwork that is dragging the team down. Without going back and watching all the games, I can tell you there were many times where Rush died without teammates even near him. If he’s not working with the team come mid to late game, the entire team is going to have an issue. So that’s seemingly why he got benched, to form better unity and decisiveness. What we got is… quite the opposite.

Before going any farther, I’m not trying to trash on Panda. I don’t envy his situation, but the point has to be made.

Since Panda subbed in for Rush, Echo Fox has gone 0-4. They’ve lost to TSM, Clutch, Optic, and FlyQuest. They went from contending for the playoffs, to being tied for last with 100 Thieves. It’s very likely Fox finishes in last, as they still have to play Liquid, Cloud 9, and their last place counterpart 100T. The biggest thing lost with Rush wasn’t his individual play, though.

Other than the first game against TSM, Echo Fox has looked completely lost and hopeless since Panda subbed in. As I said in my reactions post, Echo Fox are the worst team in the league in my opinion. Many will argue 100 Thieves, as they seemingly throw every lead away no matter how big. The difference is, at least 100 Thieves gains leads in the game. At least 100T look like they’re trying for a solid 25 minutes. Echo Fox have looked more and more hopeless in every game they play, culminating in the loss to FlyQuest. In that game, FlyQuest would win in just 23 minutes, one of the fastest games the LCS has seen all year. In those 23 minutes, Echo Fox could only earn 2 kills on the entire FLY lineup. A disastrous ending, which completely explains how the benching of Rush has gone. But what went wrong? Wasn’t this move made to get the entire team on the same page?

It certainly seems like the team is on the same page, but that’s definitely not a good thing. Echo Fox seemingly all agree they have no chance to win once they load into Summoner’s Rift. There’s no fire lit under this team. They seem to just not care. If they do care, they’re not doing a great job of showing it.

The biggest thing Echo Fox lost when Rush got benched is his fire and competitive spirit. For all the jokes and memes made, Rush becomes serious and takes care of business when he loads into the game. He has a genuine desire to win, one that we haven’t seen from the Echo Fox roster since he was subbed out.

So what decision does Echo Fox make? Do they believe the inconsistency and apparent lack of teamwork is worth giving another shot? Or do they think the complete lack of direction could work better in the long run? The duality of Rush is that Echo Fox wasn’t great when he was playing, but they’re even worse without him playing.