The StarCraft Foot Heel Won’t Be Cowed By Angry Brands

The StarCraft Foot Heel Won’t Be Cowed By Angry Brands

Lim “Larva” Hong Gyu won the finals of last week’s Zotac Cup Masters Showmatch while playing StarCraft: Remastered with his foot and pretending to take a nap during the match. Zotac, the hardware company sponsoring the tournament, put out a statement in Chinese threatening to “officially ban Korean player Larva from attending any Zotac Cup competition organised by Zotac”, and saying that it “really, really hopes Korean player Larva would apologise to his opponent”.

(gif via Twitch)

Larva’s offences happened while he was playing against a Chinese StarCraft pro named Luo “Legend” Xian. The statement from the US Zotac branch did not mention either of the players by name, nor refer to any bans; in fact, Zotac seemed to take some responsibility in that statement, saying that “we will make sure our rules on sportsmanlike conduct are clearly communicated to competitors”.

This tournament was an exhibition match with invited pros, so a “ban” would mean Larva not getting invited back to future Zotac-branded events. And Larva doesn’t give a shit about that. He emailed us to say that he does not intend to apologise, and that it “doesn’t matter” if that results in a snub from Zotac.

Larva also clarified that he had tried to smooth things over with his opponent after the match, but according to Larva, Legend “refused” to hear his apology. Legend then called Larva “trash” on Weibo. Once he saw Legend’s post, Larva says, he “no longer had intention or plans of apologizing”. (Luo “Legend” Xian could not be reached for comment.)

We reached out to Zotac to clarify whether Larva will be invited to future Zotac events, as well as whether the tournament organisers intend to impose rules about player behaviour, but the company did not respond before press time.

The Zotac Cup Masters does not have any rules in place against behaviour such as this, which Larva pointed out to us: “I didn’t break any rules about manners,” he wrote, saying that anyone who thinks otherwise should “provide the evidence”.

“This was an event that took place in the Western world, and I performed in a similarly Western fashion,” Larva explained. “There should have been no issue.”

The StarCraft Foot Heel Won’t Be Cowed By Angry Brands

This past weekend, Lim “Larva” Hong Gyu streamed some more StarCraft footwork (gif via YouTube)

After years of showing obvious talent but struggling with nerves, Larva started cultivating a showy persona in order to combat his fears and psych himself up. Earlier this year, he dressed up as UFC champ Conor McGregor, complete with red hair dye. The dickish character he’s created has only expanded since then, and it’s helped him win matches.

On Saturday, Larva did a video stream in which he practised playing StarCraft with his feet and perfected his toe technique. Clearly, Larva does not plan to give up his heel side any time soon.


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