Recently, Gen.G had to face another tough match against a strong opponent, Dplus KIA. Although the 2020 World Champions have undergone significant changes with Canna, Canyon, and Deft all having left, their performance so far in the LCK Spring 2024 has been acceptable. ShowMaker is playing very well, and Lucid, stepping in for Canyon, also seems to be quite pleased with his older teammate. DK pushed Gen.G to a third game and only lost after nearly 30 minutes.
However, during the third game, a severe bug related to the newly introduced Rift Herald appeared. Specifically, in an attack on Gen.G’s second turret, Chovy and Lehends were able to simultaneously “mount” the Herald and control this buff. As is known, the new mechanics of Rift Herald only allow one player to control this buff at a time. Observations indicated that the Herald being controlled by two players at once was dealing double damage compared to normal, causing one of DK’s turrets to explode despite being at full health.
Of course, it’s hard to say that DK lost unjustly, but this situation and the mandatory game pause afterwards likely impacted the morale of the DK players. Prior to this incident, DK was under pressure in several lanes, but theoretically, they still had moments of counterplay. The LCK organizers implemented a chrono break, and the turret remained pushed with the same amount of health lost, but afterwards, Gen.G faced little difficulty in extending their advantage.
Notably, many are questioning whether the Gen.G players had discovered this bug beforehand. After all, everyone understands that when the Rift Herald appears, there will always be a certain assignment regarding who will “ride” the Herald. Moreover, when using the Herald, there is always a short “cast skill” time. And the Gen.G players did not proactively pause the game until ShowMaker reported the bug to the referee.
Certainly, this is also the first recorded instance of a severe bug related to the Herald, and perhaps the Gen.G players were too focused on the match. However, the incident is still causing controversy as both Riot and the LCK organizers have yet to make any official statements.