Ame Insults Filipino Players with "Monkey" slur

A pub match turned ugly when Wang "Ame" Chunyu began hurling insults at his Filipino opponents, Karl Matthew "Karl" Baldovino and Jinn Marrey "Palos" Lamatao. The incident is attracting people's attention due to past events, with Chinese players reacting strongly towards negative comments.

The timing couldn't be worse for Ame, as he is set to travel to Southeast Asia to compete in ESL One Bangkok on December 9th.

Why Ame's Filipino insult struck a chord with the community

Will a precedent set by China hurt Ame? (Credits: ESL One)

It's unclear why things escalated in the pub match. The chat logs show that things started to get ugly when Pudge began playing badly. Palos accused him of being an actor (a player who takes money to throw games) and working with Ame.

Ame responded with calling his enemies monkeys, along with several other insults aimed at Filipino players. It was an unfortunate back and forth where nobody came out looking good.

The incident strikes a note with the Dota 2 community due to how other players in the past have been punished for insults towards China. Carlo "Kuku" Palad and Andrei "skem" Ong were banned from attending the The Chongqing Major.

(Credit: South China Morning Post).

Kuku had mocked a Chinese player in a pub. After seeing Chinese characters in chat, Kuku wrote "wtf, ching chong". A common insult at the Chinese language. The timing was terrible, as skem had recently said the same thing in a pro match.

The two players were banned from the tournament for their insult. Kuku stated that he had received threats about what would happen to him if he came to China.

Now that Ame has insulted a Filipino in a pub match, people are interested to see if the same rules apply to everyone.

Will Valve or ESL intervene?

ESL One Bangkok official banner. (Credits: ESL One)

The upcoming tournament in Bangkok is not a Valve sponsored event. As such, it is unlikely that Valve will intervene in another organization's tournament after a player has already qualified.

Because the Chongqing major was in China, the Chinese government put pressure to prevent Kuku and skem from attending. As such, it is highly unlikely that the government in Thailand would get involved.

This leaves ESL as the organization in the best position to respond. Unfortunately, it is not a comfortable situation to be in. Banning Ame, a legend in the scene, wouldn't look good for them, nor endear them to Chinese organizations and players in the future.

At the same time, by doing nothing, ESL looks complicit in the act. This puts them in a no-win situation. The most likely outcome we predict will be some form of a penalty to Ame's team. This is what PGL did recently when two players had a public dispute. This tows the line of punishing Ame for his transgression, without going to far to alienate the Audience.

It will be interesting to see if things escalate in the coming days or if the issue is dropped. We always hope cooler heads prevail and that the incident between Ame and the Filipino community is settled amicably.

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