Update June 25 8:38pm CT: FaZe has rejoined the match, and the match has resumed. As damage was done at the beginning of the second round before FaZe disconnected, the second round will stand as a victory for XSET.
Just as map four was kicking off in a match against XSET, four members of FaZe Clan suddenly disconnected from the map in the second round during the lower bracket finals of NA VCT Challengers 2. The winner of the match will clinch their spot in Masters 2 in Copenhagen.
A tech pause began as soon as the four players disconnected. At first, the broadcast stated that it was a small gear issue, but some FaZe players began tweeting about their situation, and it soon became clear that the facility they were playing in experienced a power outage.
It is unclear exactly where FaZe were competing, but a tweet from Kevin “POISED” Ngo revealed that the team were at an internet cafe that apparently had no air conditioning, and the venue was also hosting a monthly LAN tournament as well.
The outage has been going on for at least 60 minutes, and there is no communication as to how long they will hold out for FaZe Clan. A forfeit wasn’t off of the table for a while, but it was unclear how long the time limit would be for the tech pause to keep going. At the time of writing, the broadcast has stated that FaZe is in a new facility, but are still waiting for two players to join the lobby.
At first, fans feared that a forfeit might occur after only ten minutes because of a tweet sent by Xavier “flyuh” Carlson, but that turned out to be untrue. A Riot employee cleared up the confusion and said that a forfeit is not off of the table, but that they were “nowhere near that yet”.
On XSET’s side, there seems to be confusion around what is going to happen. In a reply to Riot’s post about the rules regarding a forfeit, XSET’S COO Marco Mereu said that there wasn’t much communication happening on their side.
The match appears to be on the verge of restarting after more than an hour of delays. For both FaZe and XSET, the match will be a test of mental fortitude, as the long break might throw players off.
