Competitive gaming draws a clear distinction between winners and losers – of course, everybody wins some and loses some. At least, that’s how it usually goes. We already took a look at some of the greatest winners but some players and teams aren’t that lucky – sometimes, we see huge loss streaks in esports.
League of Legends – Griffin
In the 2020 LCK Spring Split, team Griffin had a rough time – they managed to qualify for the World Championship the year before, and even came first in the Spring and Summer Splits of 2019 – this year, however, things weren’t going so well. After losing their coach, they were disqualified from the group stage events, they saw players leaving and more – however, they managed to come back.
After a total of 10 games lost, they found themselves at the bottom of the LCK ranking only to finally succeed at beating higher-ranked team APK, thus ending their 10-loss streak. The Korean team is well determined to go back to their previous splendor - they were considered one of the top teams in the world prior to this.
League of Legends – CLG
An even more impressive and unfortunate loss streak in League of Legends was set in the 2019 season by CLG against their biggest rival. After a generally strong performance in previous years and with an ongoing rivalry with fellow Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming ended up stuck in one of the longest losing streaks in esports history – against their rivals, at least.
Specifically, it took them just over three years and a total of 14 games before they could win a game against TSM. We did the math – between their last win in the LCS 2016 Summer Split and their next on in the 2019 LCS Summer Split, the team did not see a single win against TSM for 1176 days.
It’s truly commendable that they didn’t give up – and eventually came back swinging. Their win was decisive – CLG ended with 11 kills and more than 13k gold more than TSM did.
This suddenly put them back on the map, after not so much as reaching the knockout rounds in the years before, and not winning a split since spring 2016. It’s worth noting that they did win matches in the meantime, however none against TSM – arguably one of the strongest and most dominant teams in LoL esports.
Dota 2 – B8
Okay, we did expect a team created by no other than Danil "Dendi" Ishutin to be a bit lol. However, Dota 2 team B8 faced a 3-month long continuous loss streak – that amounted to a total of 26 losses in a row. That’s one of the longer loss streaks in esports (and the longest in Dota 2) – yet the team took it quite gracefully.
Throughout the long series of losses, the team underwent a complete roster overhaul, replacing all players except for the captain – apparently quite successfully so. They managed to beat FlyToMoon 2.0 in one of the elimination matches in the BEYOND EPIC closed qualifiers.
Or at least somewhat successfully – after finally managing to snag a win, they unfortunately continued to struggle near the elimination barrier for the BEYOND EPIC Europe qualifiers this year.
Overwatch – Shanghai Dragons
The streak the Shanghai Dragons had in the first season of the Overwatch League is something of a legend (and a meme) by now – out of their first 40 games in the season, they won a combined total of 0. That isn’t to say they didn’t play well; they were able to take maps from some pretty strong teams – yet, they couldn’t win any of their matches.
Their second season seemed to be off to a similar start – they lost their first two games, before finally successfully beating Boston Uprising after a 42 losses in a row. Their seemingly endless stream of losses actually endeared them to a lot of fans, which led to a huge commotion when they finally managed to win – a real underdog story!
There you have it, folks – sure, losing isn’t as much fun as winning, but the next time you’re stuck in a loss streak, you can remind yourself that you’re not doing as badly as these great teams at one point did – and if you ever do reach a win-streak as long as theirs, tell us about it!
For more Overwatch, Dota 2 and League of Legends, keep it here, with EarlyGame!
