There’s a video of Caster Jun, when he was casting APEX in 2017, where he finds in the audience the fan who leads the first chant. He waves, and waits for the interval music to subside (“I get it”). He gestures for her to go ahead. She takes a deep breath.
(First chant) LW Blue, one two, three!
(Second chant) LW Blue, fighting!
The fan chant is a ritual, formulaic in its wording and execution. The seonchang (first chant) leader begins with the team or org name, and then the count of one, two, three. Then comes the hoochang (after chant), yelled by all the other fans in the audience. Each chant feels new and raw, but also as old as time. In 2017, Overwatch esports is still young and new, yet the chants slot neatly into the broadcast. Caster Jun would not have it any other way. He does not speak into his mic until fans of both teams have done their chants. There is an order to how things are done.
One fan (the one who posted this video, myeon2), who has been a fan of Caster Jun since his Starcraft days, recalls that this was not always the case. “In Starcraft, there was a countdown to when the match would start, which was when the fans knew that the two sides could do the chants, but the LCK didn’t have that, so fans would initially just yell “fighting!” and cheer and the match would start. But then, at some point, one or two teams started to get the chant leaders who would do the seonchang for the hoochang, and then people who attended these matches started to report back that Caster Jun would give you a sign with his hands when the chant leaders could go. This continued into APEX.”
She asked him, once, why he took such care to do this. He said it was because it was hard for the fans themselves to figure out the timing and the different chants would overlap with each other, so he felt like the different sides could use a little traffic system. “After all, it’s the only opportunity [in the match] for fans to cheer on their players in one voice, wouldn’t it be sad if they missed out on that opportunity?”
While most chants follow the familiar formula, there are others that attempt to carve out a more compelling narrative. The first season of 2018 Contenders Korea saw two sibling teams, Meta Athena and Meta Bellum, go head-to-head in a matchup that sealed the fate of the two teams. Meta Athena, which had historically been the “older sibling” of the two — the team that introduced star players such as Libero and Sayaplayer to APEX viewers— would fall, and Meta Bellum would go on to compete in the playoffs. It was a bittersweet match for Meta fans, to see the two teams fight for a playoff ticket, and the org clearly wanted to play up that rivalry angle. The fan chant that was decided for the match was — at least according to the Meta fans on social media — rather embarrassing to execute, due to its dramatic, shonen-anime wording. (They were drawn directly from Genji and Hanzo’s Korean voicelines to each other in the game.)
Map 1
(First chant) Athena, one, two, three!
(Second chant) Bellum, you still have a long way to go!
(First chant) Bellum, one, two, three!
(Second chant) Just wait and see, Athena!
Bellum’s win was not unexpected. The 2018 spring roster included names such as Aimgod, Rio, Chara, and Na1st, an impressive list of talent, well-suited to the Sombra meta of that season. The team would go on to beat Team Seven in the quarterfinals — a neck-and-neck Map 5 Round 3 match that ended with Rio’s father on camera shedding tears watching his son’s win — before losing to the upstart O2 Ardeont in the semis. It would be Aimgod’s last tournament in Korea, before leaving to join the Boston Uprising that spring.
Map 2
(First chant) Bellum, one, two, three!
(Second chant) Bellum becomes the older brother!
Some fan chants are simple in their wording, but no less imbued with meaning. The final showdown in 2018 Contenders Korea, Season 2, saw one of the most dramatic matches in Korean Overwatch history, a game that would extend to an unheard-of eighth map, and the eighth map would end with a nail-biting Round 3. It was the fitting finale for the two teams, both with their own tumultuous journeys to Contenders finals. Kongdoo Panthera, always the bridesmaid, the perennial second-place finisher, seemingly forever cursed by their Starcraft pro founder, Hong Jin-ho (“YellOw”). Despite being the underdog in terms of fan support, Kongdoo came into the finals with flying colors: not a single match lost in group stage, and most of their matches won convincingly in a 3:1 or 3:0. There was only one match that had given them any real trouble in group stage — the game against Runaway (which had been Runaway’s only loss in group stage). Hopes were high. The roster boasted stars such as Decay, DDing, Luffy, YOUNGJIN, Coma. It felt like they had a real shot, Kongdoo curse be damned.
(First chant) Kongdoo, one, two, three!
(Second chant) Panthera, you can do it!
Runaway came into finals a similar “second place finisher” narrative (minus a Starcraft curse). They had been the fan-favorites since APEX, always with the biggest crowds and the biggest fan chants, yet always without a major title. Second place in APEX season 2. Second place in APEX season 4 — a result that saw Haksal actually bow his head in tears on stage, as he heard Runaway fans defiantly cheer “Runaway, well done!” despite the loss. The latter result, Flowervin would recall later, hurt the most and led to a lot of self-doubt about whether the team had what it takes to win an overall title. The team seemingly had everything — the talent, the fandom, the camaraderie, the drive — everything except a trophy.
(First chant) Runaway, one, two, three!
(Second chant) Runaway, let’s win this title!
And win it they did, in supremely Runaway fashion. The fans cried harder than the players did. Because it was, in many ways, their win as much as the team’s.
That’s what a fan chant tells us. The first chant, the seonchang, that yells out the team’s name and counts one, two, three — it’s addressed to the fans as much as the team. The Runaway in Runaway, one, two, three is the team, the Runaway organization, AND the Runaway fandom. The fans heed the call from the chant leader, and they respond with the hoochang.
Runaway, let’s win this title!
Let’s win this title.
The fan chant is a ritual, formulaic in its wording and execution.
But rituals are history, and thus embedded in countless recordings of Korean esports matches. In every game, on every round and map, you hear them, answering the chant leader’s call. They’re hard to see, from the stage or on camera, but you know they’re there.
