Boards›Esports

Core Team of Gambit Gaming Missing LCS London

Riot·6/19/2014, 11:45:23 PM·4 votes·6,085 views

My name is Jason “Riotjasonoliver” Yeh and I’m the Head of EU eSports and the Riot Germany office. I’m working with fellow Rioters to bring the excitement of the LCS to as many fans as possible across Europe outside of the Cologne studio. I’m very disappointed to confirm that the core team of Gambit Gaming will not be present at LCS London due to visa issues. Typically, UK visa applications take 4-6 weeks to process from Russia. Gambit Gaming was notified of LCS London near the end of the processing timeline. Despite this tight deadline and in the face of unexpected complications, we worked extensively with the team and did everything in our power to expedite the process of obtaining visas. We also investigated alternative options such as rescheduling or having Gambit play remotely from our Cologne studio. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons (e.g. security and connectivity risks, unfairness to other teams) none of these alternative solutions proved feasible. As a result, Gambit will be playing with 4 substitutes this weekend. We’re truly sorry for this poor experience for Gambit Gaming and all the fans. We really wanted the core of Gambit's roster to be with us in London. We apologize for underestimating the difficulty Gambit Gaming would have in attending the LCS London event. We wish that we had informed the teams sooner about the roadshow so this would not have been an issue. Moving forward, we will prepare all teams for potential roadshow locations as early as possible in order to ensure such issues do not happen again.

192 Comments

Godkillah6/20/2014, 1:45:13 AM55 votes

Un****ing acceptable... either the starters play or you lose ALL credibility with me... if this were any other sport and 80% of the team couldn't be at the game because of visa issues the game would certainly would be postponed as playing the game would be utterly pointless. This was nothing short of bad planning on riots part if they told Gambit at the last possible second.

Either reschedule the games or let them play remotely... anything else and you just made competitive league into a bad joke.

BlooDTraiLED6/20/2014, 12:55:36 AM38 votes

[deleted]

Arketual6/20/2014, 1:40:53 AM31 votes

There's so much bullshit in this I don't even need a item 2043 to see it.

Meanie406/20/2014, 1:58:39 AM26 votes

"We have a hard on here at Riot aimed at screwing over Gambit Gaming."

There, a 100000% more truthful statement than the crap you wrote up.

You've known about the political unrest in the Ukraine for three months, just like the rest of us in the world.

You know that processing visas in Russia takes a MINIMUM of 4 weeks.

And you decide to notify Gambit as the season starts that week 5 will be in London, giving them the bare minimum amount of time to try to get visas?

Just like a longstanding bug that you allowed to annul a rightful result last season, Gambit is taking it in the shorts again.

ggwp Rito.

Flyinghippos6/20/2014, 1:51:44 AM21 votes

How is this acceptable, like really? Gambit once again getting f**ked over by Riot trying to make it "fair" for everyone, the best option would be for Riot to reschedule the games.

Riot, get your act together, this is the second time that Gambit have been f**ked over with questionable actions.

Tom Holmes6/20/2014, 1:41:55 AM20 votes

Riot should just of posted, "we forget about gambit ops maybe next time , got to lick SK owners ass".

Bramble Berry6/20/2014, 1:33:25 AM18 votes

Apology or not, this is the second time a huge discourtesy has been done to Gambit and quite a bit of incompetence has been shown. When something happens repeatedly at the organisation level then there's a problem. Riot can put as much money as they want in to the scene, that doesn't mean it's professional. Doesn't matter if they're sorry, they fucked over fans and players with little regard. Need to start stepping it up, and not by getting a bigger stage.

Sizao6/20/2014, 1:23:15 AM18 votes

First of all its way more unfair to put Gambit in a disadvantageous situation because Riot Games failed to inform the Management of Gambit Esports in time. This is not the first time that Riot treats Gambit less favorably than other teams and is simply unprofessional. The only disadvantage other Teams would really suffer from playing these Matches in Week 6 is that their Fans who came to London maybe can't watch the game but thats about it. Gambit fans can see neither of their real Teams Games and have to watch some Substitutes playing who are most likely gonna loose. I also wanna add that Riot should be maybe ask the affected by the rescheduling would be ok with that (which they should be if they show some Sportsmanship). I am once again really disappointed by the unfairness towards one team, and how unprofessional Riot acts in these kind of Situations. I dont see competitive LoL ever become as popular as other Real Sports if the Organisation of special events is that lackluster.

Zaryth6/20/2014, 3:54:31 AM17 votes

I rarely ever leave comments on these things but this is seriously shady stuff. Giving 4 weeks notice is completely unacceptable. I'm not even a Gambit fan but I truly feel bad that they are put into this position. This situation reflects poorly not only on Riot but also on the e-sports scene in EU.

DonutSlicer6/20/2014, 2:51:20 AM15 votes

Honestly, whoever stated this isn't fair for Fnatic or Roccat is **! (please WAKE UP!)

The matter is these are professional players. Playing 1 more game isn't going to matter when they literally play for 10-15 hours a day. CLEARLY, stamina is fine.
If they do not play this week, they literally have 2 weeks to prepare for GAMBIT NOW! (tell me why and (how) its a problem to prepare for 3 teams if you literally had 2 weeks to prepare to play against gambit?)
SO you delusional (selfish) humans are thinking its okay for GAMBIT to play 2 games with 4 subs and LOSE?
THESE are professional players and most are probably good friends with Gambit players. I AM positive they would prefer to reschedule then play a team with 4 subs.

Moving on to the atrox situation and remaking the match....

This matter was by far stupid, you DO NOT remake a match that has ended and the result was finalized.
If anything, a apology statement should have been writing for SK and not Gambit.
This turnout literally made Gambit players demoralized for the next couple of weeks. While SK wouldn't have a huge problem because the deciding factors off THAT game wasn't because of the bug on Atrox.

THE HATE RIOT HAS (smh)

DericiousHam6/20/2014, 5:09:55 AM12 votes

Why wouldnt riot reschedule Gambit's games for later in the season, not necessarily next weekend? Why wouldn't you make some makeup games at close of split before playoffs. Do the rules allow for this? This seems to be an extenuating circumstance created by Riot's EU team's lack of communication to teams. They were late to communicate vital information to a team, and as a direct result of their mistake Gambit and its fan-base, not Riot, is suffering. This is akin to punishment of Gambit without provocation, gambit is feeling the repercussions of Riot's EU team's failures. Professional sport? Hardly.

If this was done in another "professional" sports league, there would be outrage. In fact, the schedules, including international exhibition matches, are planned over a year in advance for this exact reason. Riot, if you ever want to be taken seriously, and more importantly if you truly have a desire for esports to be taken seriously, these mistakes need to stop happening. If I were "commissioner" or in a like position in Riot esports I would be coming down hard on whom ever or whatever office is responsible for this. Totally unprofessional and inexcusable.

cerecia6/20/2014, 1:55:58 AM11 votes

i have pay 3 place for me and my friend and we go for see gambit we need money back !

Mart876/20/2014, 9:01:52 AM10 votes

That guy is truly sorry for minimizing their chances of making it to worlds. Basicly Riot creates the problem of not informing people in time. "So we Riot screwed up, but rules say we don't care and can do what ever we want if we screw up... " Yes it be soooo unfair for other teams that they would have to play one match more.. (tbh they could have prepared this week for that match so in which way this is more unfair then making Gambit play 2 weeks 3 games or 1 week 4 games)

So I really do not know how this guy can justify writing this all. All these solutions where possible but there will to provide a reasonable solution because the effort would be to much. I think every decent organisation would agree with just having a little bit more trouble in another week then go this way. I doubt the 2 other teams even have been approached if it is possible to reschedual that match.

So on I wonder why Gambit even makes people show up. Why spending money to send random people to London to lose.

This all is just poor from Riot and showing lack to resolve the problem they created...

shinarit6/20/2014, 9:22:01 AM8 votes

How exactly would it have been unfair to other teams to have a reschedule for a team who can't be there because YOU screwed it up?

Brabisoid6/20/2014, 8:05:04 AM8 votes

Gambit got caught in Riot's rotations... Just sad, seems like everytime there is a problem the solution for riot is to make gambit pay and everyone is happy... You guys should really think about what professional attitude means. LCS is not getting any close to be a "real sport". LCS is just in a galaxy far far away.

swaerdsman6/20/2014, 8:32:17 AM7 votes

Riot, this is terrible. You screwed Gambit (again) and are basically saying "Welp! Oops! Too bad". It's more unfair to Gambit to play with 4 subs than for other teams to have matches rescheduled. This is a piss-poor display, and I am honestly ashamed for you as a company and your terrible handling of this situation.

Sincerely, A disappointed fan.

WitchHunterQuinn6/20/2014, 5:01:38 AM7 votes

Cannot reschedule my ass. What about when Dignitas and Millennium(I think) went to IEM Brazil? Who cares if FNC and ROC have to play three games. They would have spent a full two weeks preparing for Gambit. Riot failed to give them enough time to acquire the visas, and now they refuse to fix their mistake. cough remake cough

Mandalore6520206/20/2014, 1:03:05 AM6 votes

Out of the LCS teams gambit is my 2nd favorite. this is unfortunate, that being said life happens, mistakes are made and disappointments come. Keep in mind even though Esports has been around for years the concept of it being more of a sport stretching out over a year and less of random LAN events such as dreamhack is actually relatively new, or at the very least on this scale so mistakes like his are bound to happen before all the kinks are sorted. its just like face-checking. after the 1st time and your team pings you about 300'000 times (seriously thats only 2 pings for each person tuned live on twitch, im not counting Youtube, Anzubu or other languages) your gonna ward and not do it again.

Bl0odWolf6/20/2014, 10:56:42 AM6 votes

I'm very dissapointed in Riot again. Like in the remake of the SK game where the Aatrox bug had nothing to do with the victory, GMB pulls the short straw again. Another 2 undeserved losses due to a mistake on Riot's side. I know that with the way GMB has been performig so far this split they might have lost anyway but they might aswell would have gotten 2 wins, as we saw, they can take games off of top teams (ALL etc.).

Now there's a huge chance they're gonna lose 2 games and their motivation and performance is gonna drop like hell after this, I guarantee it. Just like it happened last split after the SK game. They were doing okay up until that game (they were on the top of the standings) then they lost against SK and just went on a slump. And not one of the casters acknowleged that in any of the next matches when they suddenly lost a shitload of matches in a row and went from 1st place to 5th and almost got relegated.

They have always been my favorite team, since I first started watching competetive LoL and this pains me to see. With the way things are going I don't see them coming back from this. I just hope that when they get relegated, they win and get back in and take the top again.

I hope my predictions are wrong, the subs win and that they bounce back up from this, I really do. I just think it's entirely unfair to them and as we have seen last split they take this kind of treatement pretty hard.

Maricus6/20/2014, 2:09:47 PM6 votes

I am a fan of competitive sports and have watched Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, etc for most of my life. I have just started watching the LCS "eSport" this year and wanted to support this as a new competitive medium and support the players. I just read a news story about a college in Illinois offering a sports scholorship for League.
After what happened last week with the "forfeit" for CW and then this travesty; I have lost faith that this company knows a single thing about fair competition and sports. There is no way an actual professional sport would allow something like this to occur. This completely destroys the entire landscape of the EU LCS for this split. It is essentially giving Roccat and Fnatic 2 games against a non-qualified lesser team. How is this at all fair to the other teams who may now end up behind Fnatic and Roccat in the standings because of this debacle. On top of that the blow to the true Gambit team is tremendous. 2 games in the standings are completely out of their control and they have to sit at home while a group of alternates try and keep them from falling to last place.

Any other professional sport would do everything in their power to ensure the games happen unsullied and with the correct players. Major League baseball regularly has to deal with makeup games and rescheduling, that is just part of the landscape when dealing with a true competitive professional sport.

Riot owes everyone (especially the players on all teams) a lot more than an "our bad, we know better for next time. kthxbye"

This is unacceptable and I will be boycotting the LCS events for the foreseeable future.