After Cloud9’s first-ever League of Legends World Championship miss, some fans aren’t convinced the team’s star mid laner, Jojopyun, is reportedly being let go solely due to his excessive tardiness. Instead, these LCS fans believe he’s likely a scapegoat and that this whole situation regarding his reported contract termination is a farce.
C9 has reportedly fired Jojopyun, according to a video released by ex-League jungle and content creator IWillDominate, despite the significant efforts the famed NA franchise originally went through to secure the star mid laner for its 2024 League roster late last year.
In his video, IWD explained C9’s roster didn’t synergize well, which can often happen in a team filled with star-studded players. It got progressively worse throughout 2024 though, and despite C9’s 2024 roster supposedly being the “it” team for North America, they bombed out ahead of the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational then totally missed making Worlds.
Something had to give, and that has reportedly been Jojopyun. According to IWD, Jojopyun’s contract was terminated because he was late to team meetings, workouts, scrims, and draft meetings over 43 times—and that’s only the infractions the C9 management team started counting after they noticed how regularly the 19-year-old was tardy.
While being tardy isn’t a good thing, many community members, including famed League creator LS, believe this reasoning is a farce and is only being used because C9 didn’t make Worlds. The franchise simply wanted someone to blame and an out for not paying his contract, some have claimed in the wake of the shock firing. Even Team Heretic’s head coach, Peter Dun, agreed with the rising sentiment, stating excessive tardiness is a coaching and management issue and that teams look for a scapegoat when they’re doing poorly. Allegedly, in this case, Jojopyun.
League fans also said it was interesting that, in a lineup filled with stars, it was only Jojopyun supposedly being fired for his tardiness, despite it being a team game where staff or teammates could have pulled him in line far earlier. As Jojo has been paid big bucks to play for C9, some fans believe this was a “big factor” in why he’s reportedly being ousted.
While several fans believe Jojopyun is likely to be C9’s scapegoat, they also can’t ignore that Jojopyun “didn’t take his job seriously” and practically handed C9 a silver platter with enough evidence to reportedly let him go. Many fans believe this just goes to show “many of his rumored bad habits” and how frustrating it must have been for his teammates, like Vulcan, who had made passing comments asking whether he’d be in time in the office.
At the time of writing, neither Jojopyun nor Cloud9 have actually made any official org statements regarding the legitimacy of these contract termination claims.
