Faker Threatens to Boycott Ranked Games due to Chinese Players

Inting popular streamers or professional League of Legends ESports players is nothing new in the game, and we've seen this happen numerous times. But, what happens when that is not only isolated to one person but a whole server?

On Faker's recent stream, he has encountered an inting top-lane Aatrox player, which ground his gears, to say the least. The problem did not stem from the player's poor performance and seemed to be genuine inting, as he was refusing to use pings, and was spamming the surrender vote.

Of course, to escalate the situation any further from merely reporting the player would be foolish, as this is something everyone encounters in League of Legends SoloQ Ranked. Even professional players and big-name streamers have made their peace with the fact that, on occasion, they will be targeted.

What escalated the situation, however, was the fact that the inting Aatrox player was actually one of TES', that is Top Esports', players. The issue does not lie in the team, and Faker having some rivalries. Rather, it stems from the player being Chinese, and not for a racist reason. So, what could be the issue with Chinese players that has the most popular ESports player in the world so riled up?

Why are Chinese Players Ruining Korean SoloQ?

As per Faker's own testimony, the issue of Chinese pros creating accounts on the Korean server has persisted since 2015. This is not gatekeeping, however, but a genuine issue that Riot is yet to take care of.

In China, there is apparently a popular illegal ESports and streamer games gambling site. As is the case with gambling, there are options of placing bets on how long games will last, to whether the streamer will win or lose the next game.

This is where the Chinese pros come in. It would appear that, as they cannot bet on games in China, quite a few of them are targeting the Korean servers as the next closest thing. And, out of all the players in the world, Faker is the prime target. With the odds being stacked so high, even professional players are not against throwing a game or two, to earn themselves some cash.

Will Faker Stop Playing LoL Ranked?

Faker's threats are not just empty words. In 2020, even though he won the LCK, due to the same issue he is experiencing today, Faker had the least amount of games out of any Korean pro player, and only peaked at Diamond 1.

And, while it may be a stretch to say that Faker will give up on League of Legends ranked games completely, he may just choose to maintain the minimal rank required to be a professional League of Legends player, which is, as you guessed it, Diamond 1.

Still, it's understandable that Riot Games are not doing much to take care of such problems in lower elos, as there are quite literally, millions of players playing the game each day. The situation in higher elos is different, with only 0.02% reaching Challenger of the entire League of Legends player base.

With these low numbers, for a company as big as Riot Games, even manually moderating these games seems like a possibility. After all, every other change in the game is made with high elo and professional games in mind.

How did Riot Respond to the Faker Incident?

Only after the fact did Riot make a response to the incident Faker found himself in. The offending player, TES Qingtian will be fined by the LPL:

• Fined 50,000 yuan
• Banned from two competitive games
• Suspended from using a KR SoloQ account until the end of the year

Unfortunately, the root cause of the problem still remains at large, and it's likely that this will not act as any sort of deterrent, especially to those players that are not involved with the professional League of Legends ESports scene.

Besides, until Faker himself raised his voice, other streamers have been suffering for years now as well, and it's unlikely that any sort of repercussions would have followed for anything less than Faker himself.