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League of Legends team LemonDogs disqualified from LCS

LemonDogs League of Legends Riot

Riot have announced that team LemonDogs have lost their place in the European LCS after failing to submit a new roster for the competition. The team’s placement in the competition has been much debated after the original team, who earned the place in EU LCS, all jumped ship and were replaced by relative unknowns.

In August last year LemonDogs qualified for League of Legend’s Season 3 World Championship, earning them a place in this year’s EU LCS. However, since the close of last year’s World Championship, all of the original team members have moved on.

LemonDogs brought on a whole new roster of players but they began to receive criticism from fans that that roster of players had not earned their place in the LCS. Those voices got louder as TSM roundly thrashed LemonDogs’ new roster at the Battle of the Atlantic event.

Separate to this Ninjas in Pyjamas failed to qualify for the LCS. Four of the original LemonDogs roster, the members who played for the teams place in the LCS, make up NiP.

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A rumour spread that NiP planned to buy LemonDogs spot in the LCS.

Riot then announced that “With respect to Lemondogs’ participation in the 2014 Spring Split, we have attempted to work with Lemondogs management over the last few weeks to get the documents and information – such as a verified roster – required by every team that participates in the LCS. Unlike the other teams, Lemondogs failed to identify a valid roster to us, and as a result, have been given a final deadline of 11:59pm CET on January 8th, or they will face removal from the LCS.” That deadline passed and no solid roster was forthcoming.

As a result, Riot “will hold a qualifier for the open 8th LCS spot with the three teams that lost in the Promotion matches (Ninjas in Pyjamas, Meet Your Makers, and Supa Hot Crew), pending those teams’ ability to submit a valid roster that contains 3/5s of the lineup that played during Promotions.”

Riot also changed the rules “in order to prevent teams who failed to qualify for the LCS from buying their way in; a situation we saw as quite likely and one that we believe is contrary to your interests as fans of the LCS.”

Details of the qualifier have yet to be published.