Pro League of Legends Players That Met The Ban Hammer
By Zac Cameron ·
Sometimes pro players make mistakes, and sometimes Riot Games is forced to step in and dole out punishments. These are some of the more famous instances in which Riot has come down with the hammer.
Online gaming in general is unfortunately well known for toxicity in communication and gameplay at the base level when online idiots get mad at one another. This is especially apparent in League of Legends. Though there are arguments to be made that the League of Legends community isn't as toxic as everyone might think, it's hard to deny those elements exist, especially when they happen at the popular and professional levels of the game. To their credit, Riot Games, other companies, and esports groups have worked to weed out the bad elements and create a legitimate scene. That said, far back and even presently on occasion, bad eggs show up and ruin the bunch. These are a few cases where the hammer came down hard on League of Legends professionals and celebrities that couldn't keep it together.
IWillDominate
To set the scene, it’s late 2012, and people are getting pretty pumped for League of Legends to begin its own tournament system that will come to be known as the NA LCS. The teams that are expected to be present in this new league include quite a few fan favourites, such as TeamSoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Curse, and Team Dignitas, the four teams that have dominated much of the North American LoL scene thus far. For at least one player however, the upcoming news was not great.
Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera was the jungler for Team Dignitas, a popular team expected to do fairly well in the NA LCS, and he had just been given news that curtailed his career. In a competition ruling passed down in December of 2012, Riot Games outlined a series of charges against IWillDominate that included a “persistent tendency to engage in verbal abuse and insults” as well as a tendency to behave aggressively and derogatorily towards players of lesser skill. IWillDominate was subject to a one year ban from competitive play, and had all of his LoL accounts banned for said duration. Though he would eventually re-join the scene in 2013, this was the first instance of a high profile player being subject to punishment of this kind.
Jensen
Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen was not always the star mid laner for Cloud9. There was a time when he was known less for his high skill level, and more for his toxic in game behaviour and, more damningly, openly admitting to engaging in a series of DDOS attacks against other high Elo players. For his punishment, in early 2013 Jensen was indefinitely banned from all Riot affiliated LoL tournaments, and declared ineligible to compete in the EU LCS. Fortunately for Jensen, and fans of high quality mechanical play, Jensen would later be declared reformed in 2015, and would go on to join Cloud9. He's still on deck as a mid laner for the team as of the 2018 NA LCS
Xiaoweixiao
While newer fans may not be aware of Yu “XiaoWeiXiao” Xian, others might remember him as the former mid laner for Team Impulse, and before that, part of the original LMQ line-up that joined the LCS in 2014. An ambitious project, the plan was to take 5 pro’s from China and battle their way through the NA Challenger scene to earn a spot in the NA LCS, and hopefully from there, earn a chance to represent not only North America, but also China at future World Championships. Winning the hearts and minds of fans with their mechanical brilliance, as well as their earnest post-game interviews, LMQ successfully made their way to the 2014 World Championship, although they did not find the victories they were looking for. With the New Year came a new brand, and LMQ became Team Impulse as they looked for further success in the NA LCS.
Unfortunately, their star mid laner XiaoWeiXiao was suspended in July of 2015 pending an investigation into claims he was “Elo Boosting”, a term used to describe higher ranked players who are paid to play on the account of lesser ranked players. This suspension was later escalated to a competitive ban until early 2016 when it was discovered that not only did XiaoWeiXiao boost an account, but he was also in the process of attempting to sell an account with all items unlocked, given to him by Riot to use in his pro career. This was the end for XiaoWeiXiao’s NA LCS career, although he would go on to play for various LPL Challenger teams in the years to follow.
Hai
Park “Profit” Joon-yeong isn’t the only player on a Cloud9 owned team that’s had a run in with authority when it comes to flipping the bird on stage. In the 2015 Group Stage for the World Championship, Cloud9 mid laner Hai “Hai” Du Lam was observed in the background of an interview giving the finger to another player. While many saw this as a relatively harmless expression of dislike for comments directed towards his team, Riot obviously saw the potential to set a firm tone that this kind of thing will not be tolerated in the future, and as such Hai was punished, albeit not by a lot.
Honourable mention – Tyler1
While not a pro player, one of the more famous instances of Riot punishments has to be the legendary Tyler1. Indefinitely banned in 2016 for repeated instances of toxic and abusive behaviour, Tyler1 would go on to continue to stream various other games on Twitch, while professing his desire to “reform” and eventually come back to LoL. In January of 2018 Riot Games announced that they would be unbanning Tyler1, and he was able to resume his League of Legends streams, including his first return stream which broke Twitch records for most concurrent viewers at the time, generating a lot of discussion on the topic. The unbanning of Tyler1 stands as proof that even the most toxic players can be reformed in time.
League of Legends isn't the only game with Pro's Behaving Badly, check out our coverage on XQC's situation in the Overwatch League.