The team captain and jungler for Australian roster Dire Wolves, Shern “Shernfire” Tai, will miss two games at the League of Legends 2018 World Championships. Riot Games has suspended and fined Shernfire for “a pattern of extremely toxic and culturally insensitive language” on the Korean League of Legends server.
Riot announced the ruling last night in a post on the League website. Player toxicity checks revealed Shernfire’s behavior on Sept. 23, when Riot noticed the Dire Wolves player was reported in 18 of 165 League solo-queue matches. He also received five in-game restrictions for being AFK in-game three separate times. When reviewing chat logs, Riot found “extremely abusive” language, specifically using “culturally insensitive” rhetoric used to “verbally abuse family members of players” in his League games. That practice is considered insensitive and insulting in Korean culture, Riot wrote.
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The developer also considered Shernfire’s “history of negative behavior” on League’s Korean servers. Shernfire was banned for two weeks in January for engaging in “unacceptable and toxic behavior” on the Korean server in preparation for the Oceanic Pro League.
In addition to the two-match suspension during Worlds, Shernfire has also been fined $2,000 for breaking two separate rules targeting profanity and hate speech and discrimination and denigration. Riot said it considered Shernfire’s problematic past when issuing the ruling. Toby “UDYSOF” Horne will stand-in for Shernfire for the first two matches.
Dire Wolves’ first match in the Worlds play-ins is scheduled for Oct. 1 against Infinity Esports. Later in the day, Dire Wolves will take on Edward Gaming. Shernfire will miss both matches, but will become eligible to play again on Oct. 3, again against Infinity Esports.
