The LCK side never expected Dine to be this humble.
He had just completely smashed Faker in-game.
They'd tried to steer the topic into an attacking direction—if Dine said even one wrong thing, they could use public opinion to accuse him of being arrogant and looking down on others.
They wanted to frame it as: "He won just two BO1s in rumble and got so swollen he lost all sense."
Then the domestic atmosphere would get fired up too, and everyone would unite to attack Dine.
That way, it wouldn't affect SKT's players' mentality, and they could perform well in semifinals and finals—snatching the MSI trophy in one go.
Instead, everything got defused cleanly.
He even, openly and subtly, poked at Faker—while praising him at the same time.
He pushed Faker to the absolute peak and basically set him over a fire.
Isn't this the three-time champion?
Isn't this the Demon King?
Then why did rumble stage look so ugly?
As soon as the interview ended, Korean NAVER filled up with posts.
"Where does the audacity come from to say Dine has Faker's shadow? Embarrassing ourselves in front of China."
"Damn it, I said it earlier—Faker is the world's number one 'Shockwave'!"
"I still can't understand how the interview asked questions like that."
"Faker is washed! Why won't he retire? He should've retired long ago!"
"Please, SKT—buy less fake traffic and paid trolls. If you keep hyping like this, the players will start believing it."
"Except Zeus, they're all dogs!"
"Dine's personal charisma… is maxed. If anything, he has a bit of ShowMaker's shadow."
"SKT has huge issues. True big-match softies."
"SKT owes DK a Worlds title, and they owe DK an MSI title too."
"If ShowMaker were here, I really think he'd smash Dine. SKT looks like this purely because Faker is bad."
"If it were ShowMaker, mid-lane clashes would actually be worth watching."
"Honestly, with Dine's current performance, ShowMaker isn't a guaranteed win, but it's probably 60–40."
"This kind of mid feels like he should be Korean."
"I heard Dine's parents immigrated from Korea. He's Korean-Chinese."
"Damn it—are these little bastards really this shameless? They steal everything. After stealing long enough, they start believing it?"
Threads after threads, replies after replies.
Most of them attacked SKT as an organization.
A smaller portion talked about Lin Fan.
At the end of the day, esports speaks with strength.
This MSI performance really did win over some Koreans.
Not everyone is black-and-white.
Every place has good people and bad people—simple as that.
Lin Fan's MSI breakout actually gained him some Korean fans.
Domestic forums were the same—new threads nonstop.
With rumble stage ending, people still had a lot to say.
They were simply not satisfied.
After all, the last match was only seventeen minutes—basically the time it takes to sit on the toilet.
How could that possibly be enough?
Of course they had to go to Tieba and Weibo and talk about it.
"LMAO. Sometimes Tu Bro's speech isn't 'straight man' at all—he's actually pretty calculating."
"'My style is very different from Faker.' That's a high-EQ statement."
"If it were me: 'Who the hell is Faker? Don't know him. Really don't know him.'"
"Hahaha, the most lethal part is: 'My performance relies on teammates,' and then he solo-kills Faker nonstop in-game…"
"Joking aside—if Tu Bro doesn't train and still squeezed Knight out, you already know he's not simple."
"I get it, I get it—BUT do you remember what day tomorrow is?"
"SKT and G2 death match?"
"Hope Faker keeps good form. Don't let Caps smash him again. Today's loss was too brutal, hehehe."
"No, TFT China finals!"
Teamfight Tactics doesn't have a full-blown pro league, but it does have a huge base of loyal players who follow tournaments closely.
Still, TFT's tournament hype can't compare to League's.
Now that Tu Bro joined, TFT fans naturally wanted to ride this wave and push TFT's finals into the spotlight.
If it ever opened the door to a real league, then there'd be matches to watch every day.
It's a long shot, but there's always a chance.
So people flooded the thread, trying to steer the discussion toward TFT.
"All eight finalists are confirmed. Among the old 'Five Tigers,' only Tong Yang is left. Shen Chao and the others fell behind the times long ago."
"Korol is that strong? He made finals?"
"His understanding is still good. He can keep up with the top tier."
"Holy crap, I checked this year's rules: top six qualify for TFT Worlds. Thirty-two players total. That means our odds of winning globally are actually high."
"Six spots? If Tu Bro can sneak into sixth, he'll show his face on the world stage—best chess-playing pro player."
"But isn't it bad? Is anyone really excited that Tu Bro is playing TFT finals? We're entering knockout stage in League—one mistake and you're out."
"Online would be fine, but TFT finals are offline. I really think it'll affect him."
"Don't go. Seriously don't. Don't pick up a sesame seed and lose a watermelon."
"Yeah, don't. If he goes 10–0 in rumble and then gets knocked out in playoffs, he'll become a global joke."
"You don't need to worry. Tu Bro knows what he's doing—otherwise he wouldn't have entered the tournament."
"Distant bagpipes are blowing—who are you to tell him to quit?"
"As a pro, League matches come first! Especially MSI."
"We didn't become Tu Bro fans because of League. We became fans because he plays other games."
"What does League have to do with us? Why do you get to tell him to quit?"
"That's hilarious. League has a pro league. Does TFT?"
"Most importantly, Dine is registered as a League pro."
Weibo had been peaceful—everyone was happy after the win.
But the moment this core issue came up, people immediately started flaming each other.
And honestly, it made sense that things turned into a real fight.
The two sides were directly opposed.
The schedules conflicted, and neither side wanted Lin Fan to give up.
TFT fans felt especially insecure.
Because at the end of the day, Lin Fan is a League pro.
If enough League fans pressure the club, the club pressures Tu Bro—there's a real chance he withdraws.
How can TFT fans compete with that?
Especially since people were already leaving comments under TES's official account demanding Lin Fan withdraw from TFT.
TFT fans panicked and begged the club not to do it.
And it got really, really intense.
It wasn't just TFT and League fans anymore—
Honor of Kings, PUBG… more groups joined in.
They felt League fans were too domineering.
If later there's another schedule conflict, will League fans demand he quit again?
Once there's a first time, there's always a second—like domestic violence: zero or infinitely many.
Everyone understood the lesson of "lips gone, teeth cold."
Only by grouping up could they resist.
So people called in friends, and the crowd grew larger and larger.
No Weibo? Download it, register.
Already have Weibo? Log in and fight.
Under TES's victory post, comments skyrocketed.
In under ten minutes, it hit 40,000 comments.
The social media operator was stunned.
Usually, even after a big win, it takes a full day to ferment, and it rarely exceeds 10,000.
And this was "just" a rumble BO1—beating SKT didn't even change the overall situation that much.
It wasn't like they eliminated SKT in knockout stage.
Why was the reaction this huge?
He frantically scrolled the comments.
One glance and his eyes went wide.
Holy crap—this is a real problem.
If they mishandled it, TES would face traffic backlash.
Who would've thought Tu Bro's "should he withdraw or not" would trigger such a massive wave?
China's top-tier pro player—no doubt.
He only sighed for a second, then immediately contacted Guo Hao.
At the end of the day, the whole club runs on Guo Hao's call.
The operator was just a pen—posting what he was told, not allowed to respond freely.
Still… watching the chaos was kind of fun.
League fans' combat power was insane.
One versus ten and they still wouldn't lose ground.
They firmly occupied the right to speak on Weibo.
It turns out it's not about numbers—
it's about who flames harder.
Most League fans are "piano players."
The moment they're unhappy, they start digging graves and greeting eighteen generations of ancestors.
Direct flaming, indirect sarcasm, layered mockery—no one plays the game better than them.
Their "battle record" was legendary too.
Weibo Night—blood war with fandom circles, and League fans won.
TL: Weibo Night is an awards show for esports, entertainment, sports, the like. I can't find this League incident, but there is a incident in 2020 called "227 Great Unity"(227大团结) where a fanfic author wrote a BL(Boy's love) fanfiction of a popular actor Xiao Zhan on AO3. The actor's fans got AO3 banned in mainland China, and proceeded to attract aggro from almost every single creative circle in China. Here are some of the main participants:
Primary Alliance Members:
Fanfiction writers and readers (AO3 users - the directly affected group)
Manga/comics community (漫画圈)
Gaming community (游戏圈) - including esports fans
Animation/anime fans Creative content creators (various types)
The conflict spread to:
Different idol fandoms - other celebrity fan groups who saw this as a threat to all fandoms Cosplay community
Doujinshi/fan art circles
Online novel readers
General internet users who opposed censorship and mass reporting
Aftereffects included:
Platforms affected:
AO3 - blocked in China
LOFTER - mass content deletion, 1-star review bombing
Bilibili - videos deleted, 1-star bombing
豆瓣 (Douban) - Xiao Zhan's works mass-rated with 1-star reviews
Steam - 1-star review bombing
老福特 (Lao Futt/LOFTER) - mass reporting and deletions
The battle tactics included:
Boycotting all Xiao Zhan endorsements (Olay, Mengniu, etc.)
Mass requesting paper invoices from e-commerce to burden brands
Flooding brand livestreams and social media 1-star review bombing apps and his film/TV works Creating #227历史时刻# (227 Historical Moment) supertopic
A beautiful moment now I'ma go and read up on it lmao
__________
After that, fandom circles avoided League fans like the plague.
They didn't dare provoke them.
Because if a real war started, they couldn't win.
Of course, other games had tactics too—likes and burying comments, playing the numbers game.
They pulled the disadvantage back.
Both sides traded blows.
Weibo comments surged toward 100,000.
And these were real people—not idol accounts buying paid comments.
That "one million comments in a second" nonsense was obviously fake.
As the discussion grew, it climbed onto Weibo trending:
"Should Tu Bro withdraw?"
The speed was absurd.
Twenty minutes—straight to #1.
That kind of organic traffic made celebrities' teeth itch with envy.
Not a single yuan spent.
Pure fans and pure debate.
When did esports players ever have this kind of power?
If a movie star had this, one casual move could turn into a ten-billion box office run.
Weibo's base is only the tip of the iceberg.
If 100,000 people are actively participating in an hour, nationwide you might be looking at ten million fans.
In China's esports scene, a player with this level of momentum was basically unprecedented.
But once you dug deeper, it also made sense:
Lin Fan's game portfolio was too wide.
From League down to Honor of Kings, and more than ten different game categories—he played them all, and at top-tier levels.
Take Honor of Kings: YiZheng is definitely among KPL's top players and has championship-level strength.
And he got pressed into the ground by Tu Bro.
When that news spread, everyone was shocked.
It was too dreamlike—who could believe it?
A League pro smashing a top Honor of Kings pro…
Even if you stretch it, both are MOBA.
And both are under the same boss, Tencent.
Beyond that, they're completely unrelated.
Yet he still beat the top pros.
Then there was the rumor about Principal Wang's Honor of Kings division.
According to leaks, IG was really building one.
After Spring Split ends, we might see an IG Honor of Kings team in KPL.
Whether Tu Bro would be brought in to play Honor of Kings depends on how Principal Wang negotiates with TES.
But chances were small.
Even if Tu Bro ever switched to Honor of Kings, he'd likely join TES's HoK division—not IG's.
There were even conspiracy theories: Principal Wang was pulling the rug.
First lure Tu Bro into the HoK division, then transfer him to the League division on the spot.
With a mid-lane daddy, maybe IG could surge again—
turn one star on the jersey into two.
And honestly, it sounded plausible.
Not impossible that Principal Wang would think like that.
So in that sense, Lin Fan's huge popularity and fanbase was normal.
If he didn't break ten million, that would feel fake.
By theory, it should be even higher.
The economic value was hard to measure.
All you could say was: TES really struck gold this year.
The losses from early-year "bad business" got repaid mid-year.
Hard not to be jealous.
Especially RNG…
People even started fantasizing: if TES set a 200–300 million buyout clause, someone would definitely pay it.
Guo Hao, after receiving the message, logged into Weibo and looked around.
He wasn't worried at all.
He smiled brighter.
More heat is better for TES.
Max traffic and max topic value.
The club would never allow Lin Fan to withdraw.
The parent company was printing money…
But he still had to remind Lin Fan:
Play a bit, have fun, then rest early.
At the end of the day, League matches come first.
As for Weibo, no need to respond.
If you don't reply, they'll keep arguing.
That's exactly how celebrity PR works.
They can end rumors instantly—
but they don't. They drag it out and drag it out.
Once the heat is maxed, then they "clarify."
Same trick.
At the same time, plenty of fans rushed into Lin Fan's stream.
Chat spammed nonstop.
Lin Fan looked confused and asked:
"Why would I withdraw?"
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup