A League of Legends tournament in the Philippines has been marred in controversy after a frontrunning team was disqualified immediately after a match began due to a player breaking a rule regarding emote use. The problem is, they didn’t even emote in the first place—the game did.
During a League of Legends tournament held by Filipino streamer Suzzysaur, the academy team for West Point Esports was disqualified due to jungler Joshua “Devoured” Escucharo’s unintentional first-blood emote because, according to the tournament rules, the use of emotes would result in an instant ban. However, Devoured didn’t even manually emote, as the champion who lands first blood automatically emotes after scoring the first kill in the game.
During the SAURNAMENT, held in the Philippines and concluded yesterday June 2, West End’s Academy team was disqualified for their automatic first-blood emote after killing Viridis Arcus’s top laner. According to a video of the match posted on the League subreddit, the game was paused, and the team was disqualified.
You may wonder why this would cause an immediate disqualification when Riot Games allows trash-talking and emoting during regional and international tournaments. According to information shared by one player in the Reddit thread and confirmed by WPE in their official statement about the disqualification on Facebook, emotes—even automatic ones—are prohibited under the tournament’s rules.
Understandably, reducing toxicity is always important in League; however, as WPE called it, this was an “unintentional” first-blood emote. Fans are blasting the tournament for what many believe is a “stupid ass rule,” but what has baffled most observers was the Game Marshal leaving the decision to ban WPE to the other team. “The whole tournament was a complete mess,” one fan said.
It’s one thing for League fans to call this tournament and its rules a mess, but well-known ex-pro League player, caster, and analyst Caedre even ripped in, appalled by the tournament and its rules in a June 2 YouTube video.
Caedrel called it “the most disgusting, embarrassing, trashy-ass, fucking dog shit tournament organizer I’ve ever heard of in my life” and that the organizers were “a shame to League esports.” However, he couldn’t decide who he should be mad at—the official for agreeing to the disqualification or the enemy team that paused and complained.
Unfortunately, this tournament will be remembered for a very long time—and not because it was good.
