Just a few days ago, the champion of the LEC Winter 2024 tournament was officially determined to be G2 Esports (G2). With superior strength in their region, Caps and his teammates went undefeated in the winner’s bracket of the playoffs before eventually defeating MAD Lions KOI (MDK) in the finals. This victory grants G2 their first title of the season and secures a spot in the Play-In stage of the upcoming MSI 2024.
However, G2’s convincing 3-1 victory was not the main focus on the day of the LEC Winter 2024 finals. Specifically, a series of technical issues occurred during the organization of this final match, severely degrading the viewer experience. In fact, many viewers openly declared that Riot’s organization of this match was truly a “disaster.”
Firstly, Riot Games’ error handling was too rigid and did not ensure fair play for the match. In game 3, a serious bug occurred when the explosive nut from the Chemtech Drake map was used twice in a row. However, due to the fast pace of the match, they failed to notice this error to report it to the referee. Even after realizing the error, Riot did not stop the match or address the issue.
And right in the fourth game after that, the main broadcast channel of the LEC tournament completely crashed for about 6 minutes. This caused both the commentators and the audience to feel quite frustrated as the excitement of the match diminished significantly. With such serious errors, calling the LEC Winter 2024 finals a “disaster” is not an exaggeration at all.
The main reason behind this is believed to stem from Riot cutting most of the operational staff at the LEC tournament. According to veteran commentator MonteCristo, this tournament had fired 27 employees and only retained a few technicians and camera operators to run the tournament. As a result, when issues arose (such as the stream crashing), the resolution process became extremely slow.
It can be said that the LEC Winter 2024 finals has left a truly unforgettable memory for both Riot and the viewers. Perhaps Riot needs to urgently bolster its operational staff for the tournament to prevent similar “disasters” from occurring in future LEC events.