This entire match-fixing situation and TaiLung coming forward to speak about it is extremely confusing, because right now we only know one side of the story. I’m going to make a short bullet list of the things that personally stand out to me in his account. Everything started with rumors at Games of the Future. LGD was eliminated from Games of the Future on AUGUST 3. KJ and Yuma entered TaiLung’s room on AUGUST 2 and directly asked him whether he had been involved in match-fixing. He denied it. They asked for his phone FIVE days after August 2, meaning that, because of the time-zone difference, it was probably sometime between August 6 and 7—which is also what he said in his statement. In his interview with Papita, he initially says that they asked for his phone and that he handed it over without any issue. Later in the same interview, he says that he did not want to hand it over but eventually gave it to them. Throughout this entire process, while he was in the same room as the rest of his team, KJ was visibly upset and kaffS was the person holding his phone. TaiLung says they searched for keywords such as “Vintage” to see whether any conversations appeared, but he claims that none of his chats with him involved anything related to match-fixing. During that same situation, while kaffS was holding his phone, TaiLung received a “bombshell” message from an unknown number. The person claimed to be his mother and asked him to send money. He says he was extremely nervous and felt like he was being framed, so he grabbed his phone and threw it away. The phone was not damaged or broken; he gave this interview using that same device. What he says afterwards personally raises a lot of questions for me, because he claims that he no longer has access to either the number or the message. I frankly need much more context about what happened after he threw the phone. He mentions that they took him to a police station, but I do not know when exactly that happened within the timeline. Regardless, I think we need to determine whether it is possible to send that kind of message through WhatsApp and whether the number also disappears along with the message. There is a lot of information missing from this extremely important part of the story. He also says that the messages they found—which could potentially incriminate him—were jokes about betting that he exchanged with a friend. He did not want to reveal his friend’s identity, at least not during the interview, but said that this person is famous in Peru. Lastly, he says there should be evidence in the voice comms from the matches he is accused of 322ing, showing how communication both inside and outside the game influenced his item choices or the mistakes he made. My call to TaiLung is to request the voice comms from those tournaments and present that evidence himself. A lot of people are saying that he was framed and that they wanted to remove him from the tournament. My question is: who would decide to remove their best player just days before the most important tournament of the year? When we were working at HEROIC, KJ said that TaiLung was brilliant and that he would never let him go. I’m not a judge; I’m only stating facts that can even be seen in YouTube videos. Nothing about this supposed “framing” makes any sense in this context. It is honestly ridiculous. It is not as if they even had another option lined up. They contacted Quinn, and he declined because he was already booked as talent and had been working toward that role all year. Quinn himself confirmed this on the podcast with Capitalist, Insania, and Sheever. I imagine Wisper having to be caught in the middle of this entire situation right before TI, and it genuinely hurts. TaiLung mentions that Wisper was comforting him, but that does not mean Wisper supports him or that he is confirming or denying the accusations for or against TaiLung. It simply means that he is human and found himself in a situation where his friend looked extremely nervous. I imagine he must feel terrible because of everything this situation involves. If Wisper plays well at TI after going through all of this, I will give him a standing ovation—as always. I’m going to skip the xenophobia coming from both communities because I find it frankly ridiculous and deplorable. Regarding any verdict from the authorities in this case, we still know nothing about Vintage and DarkMago—there has been no conclusion or statement about what happened after the accusations or about the decisions made from that point onward. Considering that, we should expect even less regarding TaiLung. With all of that said, regardless of everything we know publicly, I think this entire situation is a complete fucking mess and that the truth will come out sooner rather than later. What is the truth? I’m in the same position as all of you: I have no fucking idea.