LCS: NA Challenger Player Suspended After Disgusting Behavior On Stream

Toxic players never prosper! This has now been felt by a North American Challenger League player. His punishment is just one of many competitive bans for toxicity, but also serves as evidence that Riot is committed to cracking down on toxic behavior.

Is this the worst ever end to a professional career? Riot Games have once again punished the toxic behavior of one of their players, and this time former FlyQuest Academy support James 'Duoking1' Stephenson has to bear the consequences. 

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The Canadian player participated in the NACL Open Qualifiers with Team E Turner when he was provisionally suspended from playing on July 31 for abusive in-game behavior. He officially left the team on August 3. 

In the following weeks, Duoking1 was investigated by Riot Games, and the result was an appropriate punishment. He was originally suspected of using offensive and inflammatory language in his Ranked games, but was additionally investigated on his socials to conclude whether he damaged the NACL's image with his conduct there too.

Duoking1 Took To Twitch To Compare NACL Rule Set To Fascism

In an investigation report shared on the LoL esports website, Riot declared that their investigation found Duoking1 guilty of harmful, offensive and vulgar language in-game, on a public Discord server and on public social media accounts. 

However, his own actions would also come back to haunt him. After being notified of the suspension, Duoking1 would share the letter he got – which is considered confidential information, by the way – on his Twitch stream and encouraged his viewers to find the identity of the anonymous reporter.

Furthermore, he continued insulting Riot staff and compared the rule enforcement to fascism. Unsurprisingly, Riot Games did not really appreciate that either.

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The investigation concluded that Duoking1 was breaching multiple of the official NACL Rules. The first one was the rule against profanity and hate speech, which he breached in multiple instances. This also ties into the breach of rules regarding his behavior in League of Legends, as he is not allowed to be toxic in-game. 

He also breached the rule for statements regarding tournament operators, the LCS, Riot and LoL and investigation conduct and confidentiality. His statements on stream and on Twitter/X have been found to be damaging the image of Riot and the North American LoL Esports circuit.

Lastly, he has been breaching the rule for investigation conduct and confidentiality when he made the first letter about his provisional suspension public. 

Due to these offenses, Duoking1 is now banned from any Riot-sanctioned competition until July 31, 2025. As of now, it is unclear whether he continues his professional career after the suspension. At least it seems like he can take his competitive ban with humor.

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