The “notorious crowing” of the former MSI king
In the history of professional League of Legends, RNG is considered the “King of MSI” when owning 3 MSI championships in 2018, 2021 and 2022. However, since winning MSI 2022, RNG has declined heavily and is no longer a “formidable” force in the LPL. Even in the recent LPL Summer 2024, this team played so poorly that they did not qualify for the playoffs. The main reason for this is that RNG has big financial problems, so they cannot recruit quality players and often have to sell key players.
However, in their latest move, RNG boldly declared that they will own an extremely “powerful” squad in the upcoming season. Specifically, RNG's Twitter account (now X) recently posted a status with the content: “You won't believe the upcoming squad upgrade, trust me”. For a team with financial problems like RNG, the “unbelievable” thing they mentioned is most likely the ownership of an all-star squad with “huge” salaries.
Legend Uzi responds to MSI king
Immediately after posting, RNG's above status received a lot of attention from LPL audiences. The fact that this team is losing money and has to sell key players like Xiaohu, Wei… is something that LPL fans all know. Therefore, it would be hard to believe if RNG could find the funds to recruit an all-star team to compete for titles in the upcoming 2025 season.
Even the legend who has been with RNG for many years – Uzi – did not believe in the above statement. Accordingly, Uzi revealed that he and his former teammate at RNG, AmazingJ, had discussions with each other and knew that they were both owed salaries by the team for many years. Therefore, when it comes to RNG's bold statement, Uzi does not believe they are telling the truth and thinks that it is just baseless words.
“I still haven't received my salary from RNG, so how can AmazingJ receive it? If they (RNG) pay off their debts, then I believe this team can come back. Those who are running RNG, what baseless things are you trying to say? If you can't pay me the salary you owe, then don't say anything anymore” – Uzi frankly shared on live broadcast.
Indeed, in recent years, RNG is a team that is often accused by former players and coaches of not paying salaries. Not to mention that the team's contracts are often criticized as unreasonable and disadvantageous to the players. Most recently, Ming was the victim of such a contract when he could not do livestream work because he had too many commitments with RNG.
Perhaps for this reason, RNG's announcement of an all-star lineup was refuted by Uzi himself and quickly became a “joke” in the LPL. Even if RNG really finds investors and new funding sources, they should still settle the outstanding salaries and bonuses owed to their former players and coaches. This will help RNG improve their reputation and help them approach quality players in the future.