At VCS Summer 2023, the Vietnamese League of Legends community witnessed one of the largest scandals in the tournament’s history. Accordingly, the SE team was officially reported for misconduct, and all team members, except for those identified as uninvolved (Slayder, Palette, and Hype), were sanctioned. Among them, players like Dia1 and DNK were banned from competition for 3 years. For Dia1, this could mark the end of the mid-laner’s career born in 2001. Previously, he had already shown a decline after being banned for 1 year due to “collusion”.
Recently, the former mid-laner of SE revealed during a stream that another VCS player will be banned at the end of the season. Dia1 did not specify who he was referring to, nor did he disclose the reason. However, when asked why the player wasn’t penalized immediately, he gave a shocking reason: “Currently, they can’t be banned because that team doesn’t have enough players. It’s not that they’re afraid to do anything, but they want to wait until the season ends before taking action.”
However, this reason is quite… hard to believe. Riot’s regulations have long mandated that teams must have 6 members. Therefore, teams like T1 and Gen.G have to urgently fill empty spots with coaching staff. In the VCS Spring 2024, all teams have 6 or more members. In fact, some teams like Rainbow Warriors are so large they could split into two different teams. Thus, the reasoning of not processing right away due to a lack of players seems unreasonable.
Moreover, Riot has never been concerned about whether a team has enough substitutes when violations are discovered. A case in point is Divkid in 2021 when he was penalized for toxicity. At that time, Team Flash had to replace Pake to fill in. Therefore, the community bluntly stated: “This is an unbelievable story. The reason is extremely unreasonable, and Riot has never shown such leniency to a team.”
Therefore, Dia1’s words may just be a way for him to draw attention. Additionally, VCS fans need to remain vigilant and avoid falling for false news that could damage the reputation of the players and teams competing here.