Echo Fox Struggles to Find Scrims with LCS Teams, Hindering Improvement
Echo Fox’s Henrik “Froggen” Hansen has stated that LCS teams are refusing to scrimmage with his team, highlighting ongoing tensions within the North American esports community.
In an interview with Yahoo Esports, Froggen revealed that LCS players have informed him that their owners have prohibited them from scrimming against Echo Fox, which has negatively impacted the team’s ability to improve.
“We don’t really scrim LCS teams because they don’t want to scrim us,” explained Froggen. “We can’t really do too much about it, we just try to improve as much as we can… It’s definitely holding us back.”
Froggen added, “All I know is that they’re just saying ‘no, we can’t scrim you sorry, our owner said no.’ So can’t do much about that.”
The strained relationship between Echo Fox and other major North American esports organizations has been a topic of speculation for months. In November, reports surfaced claiming that Riot Games had authorized North American LCS teams to poach players from Echo Fox without facing any consequences, if the teams continued to refuse to sign the 2017 LCS team agreement. Riot later defended Echo Fox against accusations of attempting to poach Adrian “Adrian” Ma from Pheonix1.
Aside from League of Legends, Echo Fox was not part of the group of North American organizations seeking to establish a Counter-Strike league to rival ESL in North America. This situation, as reported by veteran journalist Richard Lewis, has created tension between Echo Fox owner Rick Fox and other North American team owners.
Similar controversies have occurred in professional League of Legends in the past. TSM’s Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, during the North American qualifiers for the World Championships, publicly criticized Immortals for refusing to scrim with his team.
However, it is unprecedented for a team to be effectively excluded by every other team in the league, as Echo Fox currently faces.
Related Echo Fox, LCS teams, scrim, tensions, North American esports, Henrik “Froggen” Hansen, Yahoo Esports, player owners, team improvement, team agreement, Riot Games, Adrian “Adrian” Ma, Pheonix1, Counter-Strike, ESL, Richard Lewis, Rick Fox, professional League of Legends, TSM, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, Immortals, World Championships.