Cheating on a professional League of Legends stage is rare, but there are instances where Riot Games must step in and make some tough decisions. In the Ultraliga, for example, two players have been suspended for two games after threatening the integrity of an official match with their gameplay.
Iron Wolves’ jungler Wen “Kylin” Zheng and mid laner Shuai “Odin” Wang have been suspended for two games by Ultraliga after their match against Team ESCA Gaming on Tuesday, Jan. 23. The league released an official statement on the match and the subsequent actions, stating that both players’ violated a rule where “teams are expected to play at their best at all times within any League match.”
Players must also avoid “any behavior that potentially threatens the actual or perceived integrity” of the games, and during the match, Odin and Kylin were seen making some suspiciously bad plays that brought down scrutiny from the League community.
Additionally, Ultraliga and Riot will be conducting an investigation on any possible forms of matchfixing that could have been conducted by the players. Matchfixing is a rare form of cheating, but has happened a handful of times across multiple levels of pro League over the past decade.
There were multiple instances that were used as evidence from the public, including one moment where Kylin wasted his ultimate ability and flash on a mind-boggling play. In another teamfight, Odin fumbled through the skirmish without using abilities, and near the end of the game, he also failed to destroy an inhibitor at one health before dying.
Hilariously enough, Iron Wolves still managed to win the match due to the superhuman efforts of the team’s top laner, Paweł “HeSSZero” Karwot, who finished with 12 kills on Gwen. He was able to take over most of the mid-to-late game teamfights with ease, even though they were getting minimal help from their jungler and mid laner.
Iron Wolves also released a statement around the situation, and said that “the unprofessional behavior from Odin and Kylin [in] yesterday’s match vs. ESCA was completely unacceptable.” They do, however, hope people await the results of Riot’s investigation, before lowering their judgement upon the team and the players involved.
