TSM hasn’t been in great form since their loss at Worlds. First Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, their star ADC, announced his intentions to take a break from the competitive scene during League of Legends‘ Spring season. Then, after going into IEM Oakland as favorites to win the tournament, they lost to the Unicorns of Love, fourth best team in Europe. Now, Red Bull’s thrown them out of a plane.
In the video, which was actually filmed before Worlds, team owner Andy “Reginald” Dinh, coach Parth “Parthenaan” Naidu, mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and top laner Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell all take the leap of faith. TSM’s support and jungle, Vincent “Biofrost” Wang and Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen are missing from the video; maybe they had a schedule conflict, or simply didn’t want to spend their day hurtling towards the Earth while strapped to a stranger who holds your only hope of survival.
It’s the first video in a series from Red Bull titled “Away From Keyboard,” which wants to put esports players through a gauntlet of X Game-inspired activities in the name of a little cultural cross-pollination and product placement.
According to the trailer for future episodes, we have a lot to look forward to. Red Bull is teaching Mang0 how to slackline, and someone is almost definitely going to have to tame a wolf. I don’t know how much this is going to expand the horizons of these esport players or encourage any real cultural exchange, but I’ll watch Reginald get thrown out of a plane all day.
