Riot Games finds itself in a public dispute with North American esports organisation 100 Thieves. In the Upper Bracket Quarter Finals of the VALORANT Masters 1 tournament, 100 Thieves unnecessarily delayed a game after being unwilling to follow an admin's instruction to begin the game, Riot stated.
"100 Thieves disagreed with the Tournament Official’s choice of servers," the timeline provided by Riot Games reads. It continues: "100 Thieves members entered the in-game shooting range in order to prevent Tournament Officials from initiating game start in the VALORANT client."
During that time, 100 Thieves Head Coach Hector “FrosT” Rosario and a Riot Games admin were arguing about the choice of the server the online match would be played on. According to 100 Thieves, the server choice favored Immortals unfairly. During this argument, Riot Games alleged, FrosT threatened the admin to "leverage players’ social media platforms against the Tournament Organizer and Riot Games as a response." 100 Thieves was fined $5000 USD, and FrosT was put on probation.
100 Thieves did not let that go unanswered, however. First, they released a public stament addressing the ruling. "We disagree with Riot's competitive ruling against our VALORANT head coach Frost and strongly disagree with Riot's public release and mischaracterization of the incident after we complied with their investigation around a minor competitive matter."
The organisation explains the situation from their side, and states FrosT did not threaten to send a social media mob after Riot Games. Instead, 100 Thieves explains, FrosT told the admin: "If you DC us, you are in a bigger shitstorm than we are." 100 Thieves concluded the statement saying they would pay the fine and focus on the future from here on out.
However, to double down on their claims, 100 Thieves released a four-minute video of the incident. FrosT can be seen and heard arguing with the admins while the players wait at their PCs.
Riot Games, in kind, updated their initial statement to address the video released by 100 Thieves. Once again, they stood by their claim that "Three independent witnesses provided testimony that FrosT made a statement to this effect. When asked directly about it in an interview by Riot League Operations personnel, FrosT admitted that he made this statement. Although 100 Thieves provided Riot with a clip showing FrosT’s side of the conversation that does not include this statement, they declined to provide the full video to Riot."
100 Thieves is yet to respond to Riot's rebuttal.
The first phase of the VALORANT Champions Tour 2021 came to a close last Sunday, with regions all over the world holding their grand finals.
Image courtesy 100 Thieves.
