League of Legends UK · @uk_lol
20th Aug 2018 from TwitLonger
Couple of Forge of Champions clarifications pre-playoffs
Hey everyone,
Riot Brrrammers here (@tombramwell) from the London office. We’ve had a couple of unusual situations around rosters as we head into Forge of Champions playoffs, so we wanted to get something out there explaining what’s going on to clear things up for viewers and players.
I’ll go over the two primary issues below:
1) Misfits Academy/L1DER’s eligibility
2) Diabolus’ roster
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1) Misfits Academy’s L1DER is unfortunately not eligible for the Forge of Champions knockouts or the EU Masters. This is because L1DER has already played in a different European Regional League this split. This is not the player’s fault or Misfits’ fault.
Before I get into the specific error that led to this situation, it’s important to understand the concept of a European Regional League (ERL). These leagues represent specific EU countries and regions and will promote teams into EU Masters. Established ERLs share similar regulations and rules, designed to prevent player poaching, ringers, abusive org swaps, etc. This means ERLs are generally siloed away from one another, giving each local scene room to grow, and preventing mercenary teams and players playing in multiple ERLs simultaneously, which would suppress local talent and growth.
Because of the transitional nature of Forge of Champions and the fact it’s an open tournament, we had to adjust some of the stringent ERL rules to make it work. For example, we knew we couldn’t perform identity checks on every player on every amateur team. However, more advanced ERL-style checks were always going to be introduced for playoffs.
Unfortunately, due to an internal Riot communication error, the first draft of the playoffs ruleset that we shared with teams *did not* mention the additional step-up in requirements between the open tournaments and playoffs (multi-account toxicity checks, personal information verification, and of course the rule locking out players who have already played in another ERL). As a result, Misfits didn’t realise L1DER would be ineligible.
Now that we’ve cleared the situation up with the team, they have until 6pm this Tuesday to name their final roster. To be clear, every team has until 6pm Tuesday to name their final roster, so this isn’t a special situation for Misfits.
We deeply regret the error and miscommunication that led to this situation, and while it has only impacted a single player, that is one too many. We are taking steps internally to make sure this doesn’t happen again, including expanding the Riot UK esports team.
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2) Heading into playoffs, Diabolus management informed us that, due to circumstances beyond their control, two players were planning to leave their roster. Clearly this put them and us in a tough situation. If they had been unable to field a complete roster, they would have had to forfeit their spot in the playoffs, which would have been bad for them and bad for the competition.
Having looked into the situation, we were convinced that it had been outside the owners’ control, so we decided to grant Diabolus special dispensation to make two roster changes for playoffs (rather than the one change all teams were permitted). We also made it clear these changes had to cover the missing players only.
Obviously the whole situation is regrettable, but we made the decision we felt was best for the whole league ecosystem. All of these orgs have made significant investments in Forge of Champions and UK esports, and we want to ensure that player issues outside their control (leaving the team on short notice, injury, etc) do not ruin their investments as long as everyone involved is acting in a positive way.
Finally, I’ve seen a few comments bashing LVP, our partner for Forge of Champions, and I want to nip that in the bud. Both of the scenarios above are down to Riot decisions. If you want to use these things as sticks to beat someone, please aim your blows in our direction! But do please understand that everyone working on Forge is doing their best to build long-term success. We’ll hit the odd road bump along the way, but we really are busting our guts to make this work. Thank you for your patience and support.
- Riot Brrrammers and the Riot UK team