i do believe people can grow, and i don’t think he necessarily holds the same beliefs now. i also think his statement shows shame over what he said. but parts of it still feel incomplete to me, especially around the timeline and what accountability looks like going forward. these messages were not just one old mistake from when he was much younger; there were repeated messages using different slurs across multiple years, with some screenshots from as recently as october 2024. to be fair, i haven’t seen anything newer than that, which may suggest growth since then, but since his birthday is in june, the most recent screenshots would have been from when he was 17 and during his first ranked season, so framing this mainly as something from when he was 15/16 feels incomplete-the bigger issue is that the timeline is more complicated than the apology suggests. i also think the february 2023 trump/trans comment makes the “i didn’t know better” framing harder to fully accept. even if he was younger, he was clearly aware these were real groups of people and real social issues, which makes it harder to view everything as just edgy ignorance/fitting in. i understand why he avoided facing his past, especially if he was ashamed, but i still think it matters that it was only addressed once it became public. shame can explain avoidance, but it doesn’t replace accountability. i don’t think there is any perfect apology he could have made that would refute or undo dozens of screenshots showing slur usage over multiple years. the issue now is not whether he can say the exact right thing in one statement, but whether he can show through consistent action that he understands the harm and is genuinely trying to change. if he wants to repair trust, i think that has to go beyond saying he is ashamed and make a real effort to support or give back to the communities affected, whether through fundraising, education, or some other concrete action. overall, it is really disappointing to see this happen. i hope this can be a turning point for the community and set a clearer precedent that minorities deserve to be respected, that this kind of language is not normal or acceptable, and that growth has to be shown through action over time. his reputation is going to be tarnished by this, and i think that is an unavoidable consequence of the severity of what was found.

I understand that banning the clear #1 player from playoffs is competitively unprecedented, but the bigger issue is what it would mean for Ranked to have that kind of representation from its last playoffs champion and current #1. Ranked can’t be treated as just a leaderboard in a vacuum. It is a community-run competitive space with public events, sponsors, viewers, and a broader reputation. Backing someone with that kind of history, especially when it reflects a repeated pattern over years rather than a single old mistake, would be terrible publicity and set a bad precedent for what the community is willing to overlook when someone is good enough at the game. I highly doubt the Ranked team made this decision lightly, and calling it “cancel culture” ignores why community standards and representation matter in the first place.