Pro League of Legends Game Ends After Server Crashes

A professional League of Legends match between Clutch Gaming and Echo Fox ended with each player disconnecting due to a server crash before NA LCS officials awarded Echo Fox a victory instead of remaking the game.

Most technical issues in pro League matches are resolved by what Riot Games calls a "Chronobreak," a rewind that brings the game back to a previous state that's neutral for both teams involved. That's only possible if the game is recoverable, and in the case of CG vs. FOX during the NA LCS opening weekend for the summer split, a Chronobreak was deemed impossible. The game couldn't be recovered, and with just over 32 minutes of gameplay having taken place, the officials ruled that Echo Fox won the game.

After unsuccessfully trying to resolve the technical difficulties for some time, the Riot Games Twitch stream shared an official ruling that cited the significant lead that Echo Fox had over Clutch Gaming. For those who didn't tune into the stream and only caught the aftermath of the competitive ruling, the LoL Esports Twitter account shared another explanation of the events and broke down why the decision was made. Riot also encouraged players and esports viewers to consult the NA LCS Rulebook to see exactly how the ruling came about.

In @ClutchGaming vs @echofoxgg, the game server crashed at 32:26. We were unable to chronobreak the game. League officials are ruling the game a victory for FOX. FOX was currently up 7 turrets to 0. There was one inhibitor down CG's side, a four dragon lead for FOX.. (1/3)

— lolesports (@lolesports) June 17, 2018

..and a 10k gold lead for FOX. League officials have ruled that CG did not have a reasonable chance to come back in this game and will award FOX with the game victory. (2/3)

— lolesports (@lolesports) June 17, 2018

You can read the rules around "Awarded Game Victory" in the current NA LCS Rulebook: https://t.co/aKq1DdM4eB (3/3)

— lolesports (@lolesports) June 17, 2018

"In the event of a technical difficulty which leads League Officials to declare a restart, League Officials may instead award a game victory to a team," the rulebook said. "If a game has been played for more than 20 minutes on the game clock (00:20:00), League Officials, in their sole discretion, may determine that a team cannot avoid defeat to a degree of reasonable certainty."

Some of the criteria used to award a victory range from gold differential to a remaining turret differential to a "Straight Up GG" clause that refers to a scenario where technical difficulties occur when there's no reasonable scenario that a victory could be prevented.

LoL Esports also attributed the player lag and server issues partially to Taliyah while disabling the champion for the remainder of the competitive day yesterday.