League of Legends Disables Orianna at Worlds 2022 After New Bug

By Logan Moore

Riot Games has announced that it's completely disabling the champion Orianna in League of Legends for use in the ongoing Worlds 2022 tournament. For those unaware, Worlds is the biggest LoL Esports tournament of the year and sees the best teams from Korea, China, Europe, North America, and elsewhere coming together to duke it out to become the new world champion. And while Worlds is widely considered the biggest esports event of the year, Riot has found itself needing to bar one of the most frequently-played Mid Lane champs in the game because of a notable bug. 

On social media today, Riot announced that it's completely disabling Orianna at Worlds 2022 "until further notice." Essentially, this means that teams taking part in the tournament will no longer be allowed to choose Orianna because this bug has the chance of giving them a competitive advantage. Riot hasn't said whether or not Orianna will be re-enabled at some point later during Worlds 2022, but it seems possible that a hotfix could fix the champion in a later stage of the tournament. 

As for the bug in question that led to this decision, it involves Orianna's Ultimate ability. Noticed by YouTuber Vandiril recently, Orianna's Ult is not properly displaying in-game when it is activated. Rather than appearing over the top of Orianna's Ball that she can dispatch, the Ult animation is taking place on the champion itself. This was notably seen in a match between Rogue and GAM Esports that took place during the Group Stage of Worlds 2022, which is clearly what led to Riot disabling Orianna outright. 

All in all, this is a pretty big disappointment for LoL Esports and is a bad look for Riot with Worlds 2022. Even though Orianna alone being disabled shouldn't swing the results of Worlds in any one way, the champ is somewhat commonly picked by a number of players. As such, teams will have to now change how they draft moving forward knowing that Orianna is no longer available, which is no small task when it comes to strategy and game planning. 

Are you disappointed to see that Riot has run into this situation with Orianna during the biggest League of Legends event of the year? Let me know for yourself either down in the comments or message me on Twitter at @MooreMan12.

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