After another round of fines, xQc and the Dallas Fuel part ways

On Friday the runaway bad behavior train continued on its track straight through the Overwatch League as another round of punishments went out.

The most lenient was for the Outlaws head coach TaiRong, who tweeted a meme about American-made atomic bombs. After posting it he quickly deleted it, apologized, and donated $1,000 to the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. The League officially reprimanded him and said his contrition on the matter is part of what made his punishment so light.

Taimou of the Dallas Fuel got fined $1,000 for a statement he made on his personal stream featuring both f-words (link, NSFW). Silkthread from the L.A. Valiant was also fined $1,000, but his ban was for account sharing rather than being a general embarrassment to the league.

Lastly xQc, who sat out most of stage 1 due to an extended suspension, didn’t take the hint to clean up his act. He was fined $4,000 and suspended four games for spamming a Twitch emote. This might be confusing, because by itself a Twitch emote can’t really be bad. However he spammed the emote TriHard — which has unfortunately taken on a racially charged meaning — when newly hired Overwatch League host Malik Forte came onscreen.

Two days later, on Sunday evening, the Dallas Fuel announced xQc was released from the organization.

Now we wait to see what his ultimate fate will be. xQc’s skill is undeniable and skill-wise there are very few teams who wouldn’t benefit from picking him up during the trade window, which closes April 3. However, he’s clearly unlikely to change his behavior, making him a big risk. Will you have your main tank player for your games this week, or is he benched, still unable to control his mouth? He also has a significant following on Twitch, to the extent that I would be surprised if Overwatch League was actually more lucrative for him to continue to pursue in the short term. In any case, I’m positive we haven’t seen the last of xQc — like it or not.