
Geltek Cyber Team mid-laner Sonya “Sonjjqkke” Hovhannisyan shared on her Telegram channel that she faced sexism from her teammates on Lockin—the FACEIT equivalent for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
The quote is reproduced with the source’s spelling and punctuation intact
I tried out the Mobile Legends equivalent of FACEIT. The first time, I was matched with a decent group of people I sort of know, but during the draft, they started snidely asking if we were playing to win, then some guy said that the mid laner was, unfortunately, a woman, and so on. In this mode, everyone’s on mic, and if they’re playing to win, they’re all on voice chat. Before that, I’d played with nice people who might’ve been weaker than the ones in this story, but we played with a positive vibe and I was feeding them the map, but here it’s the opposite—she didn’t say a word the whole game, and we crushed her with macro play all over the map. I wish people wouldn’t lump all players into one category just because someone ruined their experience once, and wouldn’t crush a player’s desire to win, whether they’re a woman or a man. Again, I didn’t ruin it for anyone—in that game, the MVP was the one who lost the map—but I know I could have split the team and done a lot more, and that affected the outcome.
Screenshot [In the screenshot, an ally with the username VOLODYA XXL DUBINA, playing as Aulus, writes “just press the buttons,” “Turiki is playing, just in case,” “Sonjik,” and “sandbox.” Sonjjqkke responds by asking him to turn on his mic. — Ed.] — Another game: Marcel got kicked out because of his ping. I don’t know their exact ranks, but from the way the game played out, it seemed like only Aulus was actually moving,Bea takes my second pack to mid, Marcel is running around without a roam, and they’re sending me nasty messages))))
The only positive thing about this story is that this platform has awesome admins who ban players for running at each other like that. The platform itself has been a hit with me and my friends—it’s kind of like advanced matchmaking—but it’s only been two days, and the matchmaking isn’t always balanced, since all players have the same Elo
The most baffling thing about this whole story is that the kind of mind-boggling nonsense in the chat is written by people who haven’t even killed a single turret—I’ve NEVER seen players who’ve actually achieved anything in this game message me in-game. Just the other day, I even saw a video on TikTok where a ranked player posted a screenshot of a noob on a Cyclops and made it seem like PRO PLAYERS ARE SUPPOSED TO WIN THE GAME AGAINST RANKED WORKERSYES)0(( We’re all human—learn to take responsibility for your own losses if you’re serious about the game and consider yourself a player, let alone A PLAYER WHO THINKS THEY CAN JUDGE OTHERS
The Lockin platform launched on October 12, and on October 19, matchmaking resumed after a temporary shutdown. The platform offers an alternative matchmaking system for MLBB with a separate ranking: participants choose their roles in advance, and the system assigns them to teams based on their positions and Elo ratings.
Photo: Esports Foundation.