The League of Legends Season 2 playoffs have been in full swing for almost a week now, including tonight's extension of the previous weekend games. Everything's gone pretty smoothly aside from the network outages, but there have been some allegations of cheating flying around. Riot has released their take on the situation and have issued some penalities, most notably including a $30,000 (or 20% of winnings for advancing to the semi-finals at $150,000) fine to Azubu Frost for screen hacking the main stage's screen, with a ping showing all five of TSM in top lane without any other way of knowing where they were.
Here's the official ruling from Riot:
Analysis: TSM Dyrus clearly turned his head to his left and looked back and upward at the venue screen, but there is no direct evidence that TSM Dyrus obtained any helpful information from this action. TSM obtained no direct meaningful benefits from TSM Dyrus’ action; the game was restarted afterward.
TSM Chaox briefly turned his head toward the AzF team to monitor them. This violation had no potential or actual gameplay benefits for TSM.
AzF Woong clearly turned his head to his right and looked back and upward at the venue screens. The potential gains from this action were not inconsequential. At 00:15 into the restarted game, AzF had no idea where TSM was located or which direction they were headed. AzF did not have Clairvoyance. By looking at the venue screens, AzF Woong stood to learn the location of all TSM champions.AzF Woong’s actions did yield tangible benefits for AzF. Once AzF learned that all five members of TSM were in the top lane area, this reduced TSM’s ability to control top lane and pressure AzF’s blue side. It also allowed AzF to more safely invade TSM’s red side.
There were many other allegations of cheating by other teams, including World Elite and TSM themselves, which you can read about on Riot's forums here. The fined money from Azubu will be donated to Riot's charity efforts in Korea, so at least that's something to be happy about. Of course, if Riot had just stayed with the norm of constructing booths for their players to play in, this wouldn't have been an issue at all.
Dustin Steiner is GameZone's eSports Correspondent! Follow him on Twitter @VGHC_Deitis and check out Video Gaming Hard Corps, where he is a local tournament organizer for the S. FL. Fighting Game Community.
