Here’s why you should patch your games before playing competitively

LoL Challenger series

League of Legends pro team Cloud9 Tempest have been disqualified from the Challenger Series for the Spring 2015 split after one of their players failed to turn up for a match because he didn’t patch his game client. 

As players checked-in for the live-stream match, Ritchie “Fade” Ngo couldn’t log on as his client was updating. The team made a sudden decision to use their analyst – Tim “Timokiro” Cho – as a replacement for Fade, having him log in with Fade’s details and impersonate him for the matches. Impersonation is a breach of the Challenger and League of Legends rules, and the punishment for such has been disqualification.

Under section 9.1 in the League of Legends rulebook, ‘Ringing’ or playing using someone else’s account is deemed a breach of the unfair play rules. As such, Cloud9 Tempest have received four penalties: the team are disqualified from the series for the Spring Split, and its players are all suspended from all Riot-sponsored LoL competitions until the Summer Split later in 2015. The team’s manager – Danan “Kaniggit” Flander is also suspended until the Summer Split, and Cloud9 cannot sponsor a Challenger team until the Summer Split. Cloud9 Tempest’s opposing team Confound are awarded victory for the game.

The penalties come thanks to Cloud9 Tempest not alerting CS officials to the patching problem, instead deciding among themselves to get Timokiro to take Fade’s place. Team manager Kaniggit was not aware from the very start of the game, but found out during a team call as the matches took place. He allowed the matches to play out rather than contacting officials, and as such implicated himself in the problem.

Escaping any penalties is the team’s substitute player, Jonathan “Grigne” Armao, who was unaware of the situation.

Players were reminded last Sunday and again on Monday to patch their game clients in preparation for the match, but Fade managed to miss or ignore both reminders. As such, Cloud9 Tempest have no chance of winning the prize fund. The team will not be required to pay any fines, however.