What happened?
Vitality's League of Legends Team Fined After First Week of LEC Action
The LEC Winter Split hasn't even really got rolling yet, and it seems that there are already fines being dished out against one of the teams. The teams mid laner and former World Championship runner-up Luka "Perkz" Perković accidentally used a banned rune in their first match, which cost his org some cash.
League of Legends is a buggy game, we all know that and witnessed it even on the biggest stage this year, which is why sometimes certain runes and champions are disabled. For the start of the 2023 LEC Winter Split, one specific combination was banned from play and yet it was still picked.
LoL: Perkz Picked Ryze and Waterwalking Against Fnatic
A pretty huge bug was found with Ryze, that when this champion had the Waterwalking rune equipped he could basically get endless mana. This is due to his passive, which lets him gain 10% per 100 AP max mana. This passive along with the Waterwalking rune, can be exploited to the point where Ryze basically has infinite mana.
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Therefore, playing Ryze with this bug was disallowed during the start of the 2023 LEC Winter Split, but it seems that Perkz flew under the radar and managed to sneak in some Waterwalking for his first match. This was, of course, later noticed by the LEC.
LoL Esports EMEA director Maximilian Peter Schmidt tweeted out the next day that the Competitive Operations team assessed whether the mid laner had gained a significant advantage thanks to the bug. They found no foul play and therefore haven't done anything more than fine Vitality.
How much the fine is was not revealed, but this will definitely remind teams to watch what they pick and go over the current bans in the game before their next match day.
Some fans did wonder why it took the LEC so long to react and why the referees could not try and put a stop to the rune being picked right when it happened. There is also no way to disable a rune from being picked, something Schmidt also added when a fan asked him.
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