After the team Limit Test took home the gold at Twitch Rivals, fans were beyond hype – Ashkan “TFBlade” Homayouni spearheaded a roster comprised of other famous streamers, high elo players, and ex-professionals.



We saw TFBlade’s squad take down teams hand-picked by the likes of Danny “Shiphtur” Le, Joedat “Voyboy” Esfahani, and more.



One of those aforementioned ex-professionals, however, was John “PapaChau” Le – released from his position on Clutch Gaming Academy just ten months ago after his history of emotional abuse came to light. Given that the allegations were serious enough and backed with sufficient proof for an already struggling CGA to replace their player overnight, this should have been the nail in the coffin for PapaChau’s League of Legends career.



This, unfortunately, hasn’t been the case. Alongside his Twitch Rivals victory, the player has returned to his roots in the collegiate scene.

What should have been the end

PapaChau has been around the competitive LoL scene for quite some time now. The veteran support played for teams like NME Esports (who later took to the LCS stage in 2015 without the player), and even had LCS experience on an admittedly struggling Echo Fox roster. PapaChau’s long career was entering a renaissance in early 2019, with his joining of Clutch Gaming Academy looking to bring the young players surrounding him to title contention.

A tumultuous start to the split followed, but CGA were finding their feet. And then…

PapaChau’s ex-girlfriend, Amy Vu, released a multiple page document on Twitter detailing the support player’s history of abuse and neglect within their relationship.

I was emotionally abused for 2 years by @PapaChau_ and am a victim of non-consenual distribution of illicit images. Thank you so much to everyone who has been so kind to me these past few days. ❤https://t.co/zaSzusRVJx — Amy Vu (@SuperAmyy) March 21, 2019

“This information is just to acknowledge that he may not be who he says he is and this is just a warning to all future teams who possibly would want to trust him as their player,” warns Vu in said document, which detailed things such as distribution of explicit imagery from PapaChau through Vu’s social media accounts, among many other things.



Some of the most abhorrent actions detailed within would certainly hold up if given as police evidence, and that Vu didn’t press charges (subsequently denying a criminal history for PapaChau) is presumably part of the reason why he is still allowed a player career to this day.

And it sadly wasn’t the first time this happened in League of Legends

Once upon a time, there was a fan favorite marksman in the North American League of Legends scene. One of the few that could challenge the elite of Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, Jason “Wildturtle” Tran, and Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi, Li “Vasilii” Wei-jun was a star in the making on LMQ Esports.

Upon his return to China, however, a string of defeats followed Vasilii’s player career. Normally players would vent their frustrations in solo queue, or use them as drive to get better; Vasilii instead took his anger out on team equipment, walls, and eventually – his partner. Domestically abusing his then-girlfriend on stream in late 2017, Vasilii was arrested and kicked from his team, banned from the LoL esports world until this year.

While PapaChau’s allegations were nowhere near as severe, the lack of a competitive statement – and even his exit from CGA having zero announcement around it, just a blip on the contract database – is partially to blame for enabling his potential return to the big stage.

Should Twitch vet their Rivals candidates more thoroughly?

While a competitive ruling would have made the player history of every participant abundantly clear, even a swift Google search would have turned up articles detailing this controversy.

There was either a lack of research, a good amount of negligence, or acknowledgement that the few months PapaChau spent out of competitive served as enough penance.

That being said, there was only so much to research. CGA released PapaChau quietly, as mentioned, and the closest thing to a professional player’s opinion on the matter was Nidalee streamer KingNidhogg chiming in on a Reddit thread.

And rather than address the situation at hand, KingNidhogg used the situation as a cautionary tale for when it comes to dating within the League of Legends world: “Word of advice to anyone that is into high elo/streamer guys – just don’t, not worth the hassle. We’re terrible and not worth the upkeep at times, especially in long distance relationships. <- completely not worth. Take it from me, the absolute epitome of an e-boy/e-dater/e-dumbass/e-rick (at least in the past).”

Is ten months out of Academy enough of a punishment after abuse allegations? No, it should be much more severe 60%, 6 votes 6 votes 60% 6 votes - 60% of all votes

Yes, it's not any of our business 40%, 4 votes 4 votes 40% 4 votes - 40% of all votes Total Votes: 10 Voting is closed Poll Options are limited because JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Is ten months out of Academy – a decent amount of time in the world of esports – enough of a punishment?

The answer is: probably not.

However, with the well-known volatility of the amateur scene in North America, being out of Academy and not an upcoming talent – in PapaChau’s case, being a known quantity – means that you will eventually just fall into obscurity.



Unfortunately, some will approach this with the rationale that in order to be a good League of Legends player, you don’t need to be a good person. While that is true, the claims made by PapaChau’s ex are incredibly serious – and his response of deleting his social media accounts reeks of guilt on his part.



Should we blame TFBlade for drafting the player he thought – knew – would bring him home the gold? No. But someone should be held responsible for this, since as far as Twitch Rivals goes this time around, PapaChau clearly isn’t.

Considering League of Legends is renowned for having one of the most put-together structures in terms of tournament and esports career formats, that something like Smash is outdoing it in holding players accountable for their actions is certainly a head turner. One only needs to look at the month, year, and in some cases, life-long bans from the scene for similar situations to the one involving PapaChau.

That this apparently went on uncommented by the professional community, even featuring a quiet release to avoid what was presumably a PR nightmare, is mildly disturbing. Ten months isn’t even as long as the accused individual had been making this woman’s life hell for, so an exile from all-things competitive League should have been enforced for longer than that.

Besides a couple of critical Reddit comments in the post-match thread for the Twitch Rivals final, the community at large seems to have forgotten about this ordeal. We haven’t – and it’s doubtful that the victim ever will.