Chaos reigns during LEC matchday 3

The League of Legends European Championship was thrown into chaos during the third matchday of the league’s Summer split on June 24. A visual bug caused one of the longest game pauses in recent memory.

The second match of the day suffered two separate pauses which had a knock-on effect for the rest of the schedule, seeing the LEC play well into the night. Prior to the delays, the day had already been affected by Covid-related issues.

Excel v Team Vitality suffers a 51-minute pause

Excel Esports taking on Team Vitality may have been the second match of the LEC on June 24 but for the fans in the league’s Berlin studio, it was the first “real” match of the day. The opening match between Astralis and SK Gaming had been played remotely following a positive Covid case within the SK Gaming team.

The action returned to the main stage in a much-hyped matchup between Excel and Team Vitality, who had both gone 2-1 during the first week of play. But issues quickly emerged as, not for the first time this split, there was a lengthy pause between the conclusion of the draft and the start of the match. Just under five minutes elapsed before the players were able to access the Rift.

From there, Excel stormed to an early lead and were at soul point heading into a fight around the drake pit at the 25-minute mark. Just as the teams were about to engage one another, the game was paused.

The game remained paused for some time until it resumed, with Excel grabbing a quick kill before the game was immediately paused again.

The LEC would later reveal that an in-game visual bug had caused the initial pause and the brief return to the game was due to Vitality agreeing to a “chronobreak” which ended up irreversibly corrupting the game state.

Overall, the game was paused for 51 minutes until desk host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere announced that the game was to be remade and started over. The teams would not be required to draft the same lineups as the original match.

Excel went on to win the new match in 35 minutes, continuing their white-hot start to the season.

Late night for the LEC

As a result of the pause, which viewers on Twitch began referring to as the “Gigapause”, the rest of the LEC schedule was severely delayed. Members of the media were informed that no players would be available for post-game interviews, and the gaps between the remaining matches were streamlined as much as possible.

The hardest-hit teams were Fnatic and MAD Lions, who were scheduled to face off in the last match of the night. While their match should have begun around 2200 CEST, the match did not start until 0030 CEST on June 25. Both teams looked visibly tired during the match and after securing victory, the members of MAD Lions pretended to sleep during their post-game photograph

The LEC returns later on June 25, hopefully with less technical issues. The 1-3 SK Gaming take on the 0-4 Misfts Gaming in the opening match.

Header: LEC