‘Game-Altering’ Bug Disrupts League Of Legends World Championship

‘Game-Altering’ Bug Disrupts League Of Legends World Championship

The second League of Legends World Championship game between European team Fnatic and Chinese challenger EDG was put on hold today due to an issue with one of the player’s “Q” keys. After determining it was a “game altering bug,” Riot decided to start from scratch.

The Q key issue first began to show itself 20 minutes into Fnatic and EDG’s second match of the day. The game was just about to heat up after an extended farming phase during which EDG managed to get a single kill off Fnatic. Then Fnatic player Reignover, who was playing as the big fat barrel-chucking League champion Gragas, started having trouble with his “Q” ability. That’s the one that lets Gragas throw his barrels; it’s a central part of his character’s gameplay kit and identity.

The game was put on hold while technical support flooded around Reignover’s desk and tried to troubleshoot the problem and determine if it was a hardware problem (i.e. one with his keyboard) or a software problem (one with the game). After a few minutes, Riot switched its broadcast and back to the analyst desk that’s normally only shown pre and post-game. 20 minutes later, Riot determined it was an “extremely rare” bug that affects Gragas and messes up his barrel-throwing abilities.

You can watch the moment when a one-in-a-million bug took out the biggest eSports event of the year here:

It switches back to the analyst desk just before the seven-minute mark in that clip. They’re still on the analyst desk as of this writing (about 30 minutes later at this point), but the game is supposed to restart soon.

Riot’s analysts said that the Gragas bug, while “game-altering,” was determined to be rare enough that they are going to keep him enabled in the World Championships going forward. I’m betting that Fnatic won’t want to choose him again, though!

It’s a huge bummer that this, of all games, was the one to be taken out of commission by a friggin’ bug. It was the first (and probably one) game in Worlds where Morderkaiser and Gangplank, both of League’s most OP/broken champions at present, were being played — against each other, no less! That would have been a real Highlander-style showdown.

Ah well. At least this is the kind of thing you really don’t get when watching analogue sports. aSports?


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