It seemed like only yesterday that Team Liquid streamer Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni reached Masters on Korea’s League of Legends servers. Now, after that silent celebration, TF Blade is calling Riot Korea “racist” for banning him.
TF Blade has been playing solo queue on Korea’s servers for a while now, hoping to reach the elusive top rank. This was part of a bigger journey to become number one on every server in the world, a goal that has not been without its fair share of drama.
The most recent issue has come in the form of a ban from Korea’s servers during his upwards climb. Riot Korea has banned him for abusive language, but TF Blade alleges that he’s said nothing worthy of a ban. The single chat log that Riot referenced was a long rant TF Blade went on against his jungler, whose misplay apparently had cost the streamer dearly his laning phase. While he admitted to saying some mean things, he said most of it was aimed at the game itself, not any personal attacks.
But what made this accusation even more frustrating to TF Blade was how long it seemed Riot to get him the information. After being banned, TF Blade had reached out to Riot Korea to find out why this had happened and what chat they were referencing. He stated that he ended up waiting two hours, making him suspicious of the claim’s legitimacy.
“If it’s just email, forward it to me already Come on. Chop chop. Two hours, still haven’t emailed me. I’m like, are you making up an email? Where’s the proof? Just give it to me already. I thought you were just forwarding it. It’s not that hard.” TF Blade said.
Once he finally received the email, he wasn’t much happier.
“I literally feel targeted by Riot. This is actually becoming a mess. This is it. One game, look. First of all, no warnings. Nothing. One game,” he ranted.
Showing off the chat logs during the stream, TF Blade stated that the worst thing he said was, “Why do you have to be so bad?”
TF Blade was banned from Turkish servers last year for abusive language, too. Many of his comments were racially charged at the time, although TF Blade claims the rage was from a mixture of lack of sleep and dealing with his teammates purposely throwing games to keep him from his goal.
TF Blade defends toxic behavior in Korea
In the end, TF Blade had apologized for his language. But in this most recent incident, TF Blade doesn’t seem as quick to admit any fault. In fact, TF Blade said he felt “targeted” by Riot Korea, and even mentioned that they might be “racist.” According to TF Blade, other pros and competitive streamers have been treated similarly on the Korean server, leading him to come to this conclusion.
“When I first came on the server,” he added, “they told me I had to change my language from English to Korean. Why?”
According to TF Blade, this was a huge inconvenience for him. He wasn’t sure which champion was being pinged for flash. But TF Blade went along with it anyway, claiming that Riot Korea was goign to take his account away if he didn’t comply.
Upon hearing about this and seeing the chat logs, his Twitch viewers had mixed reactions. Some felt that TF Blade was clearly harassing the other player, while others felt that Riot Korea was purposely trying to keep him from climbing any higher.
Despite his frustrations, TF Blade tweeted that his trip to Korea had been amazing overall.
“It was mindblowing to see so many fans here. I’m super grateful for it all,” TF Blade said.
