In League of Legends, a situation involving the Korean top team, the world champions T1, is escalating further. Due to ongoing DDOS attacks, the elite LoL team is now forced to suspend its streams. This results in a lack of money. Their sporting success is also at risk. The tone towards Riot Games is becoming harsher and sounds somewhat desperate.
What is the problem?
- The popular and highly-paid players of T1 have been suffering from DDOS attacks for months, specifically targeting T1 players and their matches, sabotaging the world champions.
- In the past, this has already led to players like Faker being unable to participate in training matches, the scrims, and they constantly had to change their accounts to be able to play and train at all.
- In April 2024, T1 already complained that DDOS attacks had led to a defeat in the South Korean playoffs. Now the problem has likely escalated completely.
T1 suspends streams, complains about loss of revenue
What T1 demands: On June 8, T1 announced that they had to stop streaming. This would result in the loss of crucial revenue sources for the team. According to T1, playing their pros in SoloQ in South Korea is important for them to reach and maintain their top performance level.
T1 urged Riot Games to “fulfill their duties and stop the attacks (via Twitter)”
Although Riot Korea and Riot Games have been working on a solution for a long time and also collaborating with providers, they have been unable to solve the problem in the long term.
T1 emphasizes: The problem cannot be solved by the LCK and fans should not put pressure on Riot Korea or Riot Games. They only want to inform the fans about the situation.
How is Riot reacting? Andre “Riot Meddler” van Root commented on T1’s cry for help in a Twitter post, saying that they have been closely collaborating with T1 since the beginning of 2024 to resolve the issue. However, they do not want to provide too much insight into their work to avoid giving attackers more information than necessary.
They emphasize, however, that it is the “top priority for Riot Games”.
How is this being discussed? The impact of these DDOS attacks does not only affect T1, but also all players who are matched against T1 pros. One person says it’s like “Russian Roulette” whether you have a T1 player in the match or not.
But many fans are also specifically worried about their idols: It is simply very unfair for T1; they cannot train properly for events like the Worlds.
T1, and especially their midlaner Faker, hold a unique position in League of Legends. T1 is by far the most popular team worldwide, and Faker has achieved cult status for many years. However, recently it seems that Riot Games is struggling to leverage this unique status positively: LoL players are so angry that they want to permanently ban a champion in every game to really show Riot a lesson
