Preface: With the S15 season completely finished, the majority of players have been paying attention to the current offseason, during which the LPL's Demacia Cup began. However, serious problems occurred right on the opening day. Early matches were online contests between major clubs, and it was expected that network instability would be quickly resolved by now. Unexpectedly, delays happened again, and even after hours of fixes, normal play could not resume. This caused the UP team to be declared losers without dropping any game, leaving both teams dissatisfied. Yet, the officials have not rescheduled the matches so far.

LPL Declared Losers Despite Not Losing Matches

Most players are quite familiar with the Demacia Cup. As a relatively entertainment-focused event in the LPL region, it is held annually. Some teams send newly formed lineups, while others field secondary rosters for experience. With this season’s start, fans were eager to see how the reshuffled teams would perform, especially WBG, who brought their full main roster. As a top-tier all-Chinese squad for the new season, expectations were high. Unfortunately, the first day saw serious issues, where network fluctuations caused a team to be penalized despite not losing any game.

Let’s review what happened. The match between LNG and UP was originally scheduled around 7 PM, but officials announced that UP’s region experienced a catastrophic, uncontrollable network failure. Both the club and league responded promptly to investigate, finding the problem was with the local ISP, causing widespread network instability. Hence, the match was postponed from 7 PM to 10 PM. After one game resumed, network issues persisted severely. UP had to pause for too long again, frustrating LNG players who were waiting. Ultimately, the league applied rules that automatically handed a loss to UP, as they failed to be ready within 45 minutes past the official start time, resulting in a two-game forfeit loss.

The final outcome was LNG winning the Demacia Cup opener 2-1 without actually winning a game on the field. Frankly, this was unfair to UP since the cause was not their club’s fault but a force majeure due to their ISP’s massive network disruption. Notably, UP’s jungler and bot lane players were temporarily loaned to assist and have not secured jobs yet; this match’s result might impact their next season’s salary. Currently, UP’s players and coaching staff are quite dissatisfied and reportedly in talks with the officials.

So far, the officials have not announced any rematch schedule. According to the official rules, penalizing UP is justified since the issue stemmed from the club’s side and not the league’s responsibility. A region suffering four to five hours of network repair failure is indeed a serious incident. From a procedural standpoint, the officials acted correctly, but emotionally, they might consider giving UP a chance to replay. The final decision rests with the officials. LNG is also facing heavy criticism, and if both teams agree, a tiebreaker might be arranged.

Farewell Thoughts

Honestly, there is no reason to blame LNG. They have been preparing since 7 PM and endured the delay with UP until early morning without concluding the match. Even if they refuse a rematch, it’s perfectly reasonable, and fans should not criticize them. The online backlash is misguided, focusing on LNG winning without winning a game rather than discussing UP’s network maintenance issues.

Dear viewers, what are your thoughts on this matter?