The Summer Split of the 2018 NA LCS season kicked off with a Week 1 that featured the introduction of a crazy meta on the pro stage as well as some controversy. In the matchup between Echo Fox and Clutch Gaming, a game-breaking bug paused the game for a suspiciously long amount of time. At the end of the break, officials had declared that because a restart would be required, Echo Fox had actually satisfied the conditions set in place to achieve an “Awarded Game Victory.” Although there was confusion upon the announcement, the specifics of the ruling are very well communicated by Chris Greely, the NA LCS Commissioner. The controversial ruling was the first of its type in professional League of Legends, but the awarding of a game to the “winning team” when a game-ending problem has occurred is not unprecedented in traditional sports.
I’ve put “winning team” in quotes because different sports stipulate different qualifications for calling a game in a team’s favor. In the context of other leagues’ rules, the NA LCS Awarded Game Victory policy is one of the more reasonable ones when it comes to regular-season match results:
A breakdown of what constitutes an awarded victory in the NA LCS. Officials have outlined three qualifications for awarding a team victory in the event of a game-ending crash after 20 minutes of play— From the NA LCS 2018 Rule Set
In the NA LCS, officials may use three different qualifications to help determine whether or not a team can avoid defeat. Although some of the Awarded Game Victory qualifiers are intricately linked to one another (e.g. turret advantage and gold advantage), this seems to be a relatively fair rule, especially considering that its language (MAY!!!) offers some wiggle-room for officials to determine victory (a potential point of controversy). In general though, I think most teams down by 7 turrets or 2 inhibitors see slim chances of victory. These rules seem even more forgiving for the losing team when considering the awarded victory qualifications in other sports that succumb to match suspension, such as Baseball in the MLB and motorsports in NASCAR.
In the MLB, delays can happen for a wide variety of reasons, but the most common cause is a rain delay. During a rain delay, if match officials decide that the game is unlikely to be restarted within a reasonable amount of time, then the game is suspended or permanently ended as determined by the rules. In this scenario, a “Rain-Shortened Game” may occur. If the game has completed at least 5 whole innings (each time has batted the same number of times equal to or over 5), whichever team is winning is simply awarded victory for the game (in the case that only the away team already batted and play is suspended, the home team still wins if they are ahead). In comparison to the NA LCS policy, this seems less fair. It is very possible for a team to win a game from being ahead by only one run just over halfway through the game, in which case you might get some great grounds crew antics:
NASCAR has an understandably similar policy, mainly because racing in adverse conditions is incredibly dangerous. In NASCAR (and most other motorsports), victory can be awarded to the leading car if more than half of the laps are complete when a permanent rain suspension occurs. Imagine being one car-length ahead of your opponent halfway through a race, and winning. Or better yet, imagine being behind by one car length at the halfway point and losing the race. You would be pissed. Although NASCAR race suspensions are rare, they certainly do occur, and seem a bit unfair. (Also as an aside, it’s pretty wild that NASCAR doesn’t make their rules and regulations public!)
Although a weather delay is unlikely for a League match, we can still bring this back around to the NA LCS, where the competitive ruling handed out by the officials seems more calculated and acceptable in the grand scheme of athletic regulations. If the NA LCS had adopted MLB’s or NASCAR’s rules (which they had no reason to do, but go on this mental walk with me), Huni could have eked out one last 1v1 to give Echo Fox a 1-Kill, 17-Gold lead before the glitch occurred, and Echo Fox would have won. Thankfully, the NA LCS has implemented a set of smarter rules to govern these unfortunate game-breaking events. Does the NA LCS have a perfect system? Probably not, but its flexibility of win conditions and official’s judgement is fairly unique in the world of sports and it’s incredibly commendable that such a system exists at all.