Lag Is Actually To Blame For Once As League Of Legends Matches Will Be Replayed

Riot Games’ esports division has released a statement confirming a latency discrepancy between the Busan venue and RNG Team’s remote venue during the League of Legends’ Mid-Season Invitational competition.

“We discovered following day three that there was a discrepancy in the latency being reported in game logs for all matches versus what was being experienced in the Busan venue,” the press release stated.

That means teams playing in Busan were playing at a higher ping, while the RNG Team–which is competing remotely in China–was playing at a lower ping. Because this put RNG at an advantage, RNG will now have to replay three matches. RNG previously won three out of three matches, but those results will now be void.

RNG is competing remotely in China this year due to Covid restrictions in Shanghai. RNG’s head coach Ken Zhu (Zhu Kai) took to Weibo to write a very long statement commenting on the matter. “My first reaction was that I didn’t understand [the decision]. During my 10-year career, I’ve never encountered a situation like this. The players and management are confused as well,” he says.

It’s clear Zhu isn’t very happy with the situation. He makes it clear that the team and him will respect the competition’s decision and will cooperate with MSI’s rules. But he also adds, “If the latency issue was discovered on the competition’s first day, I’d totally understand. But the fact that the competition went on for three days until the latency issue was discovered and additionally asking us to replay our matches, isn’t that inexcusable? But that’s the reality of the situation, and the only thing we can do is to accept and cooperate.”