A bunch of alleged Counter-Strike matchfixers determined to make a sudden swap to League of Legends professional play, leading to a “faux” professional staff that received caught after their very first collection.
It’s more and more widespread for tier 2 esports leagues to be a hotbed for matchfixing and rigged matches, to the purpose that it’s been alleged matchfixing is the one purpose groups in these leagues keep afloat.
A Valorant scandal hit earlier this yr that alleged tier 2 groups had been betting lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} on matches, and comparable scandals have come to cross in League of Legends through the years. China’s tier 2 league is especially infamous for this, with one bust leading to nearly 40 gamers getting banned.
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Nonetheless, one Lithuanian esports staff within the Rift Legends league was so dangerous at hiding it that they received caught after their first match and had been thrown out of the league.
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LoL staff instantly banned for creating faux staff to matchfix
It’s no secret that competing in tier 2 esports leagues isn’t probably the most worthwhile enterprise on the market. The price of sustaining a staff is so excessive that Riot Video games needed to exempt groups within the LCS (now LTA) from fielding a compulsory tier 2 roster in order that orgs within the league may keep afloat.
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However, whereas there aren’t some ways to generate profits off of fielding esports groups on this league, some lower than authorized means are on the market for groups to make a fast buck.
A staff known as MY STAR dumped its whole roster forward of the Rift Legends 2025 Summer season Cut up and fielded a completely new one, with not one of the gamers from the prior staff having something lined up.
MY STAR fully threw the primary sport, with some gamers wanting like they’d by no means touched League of Legends of their lives. Balukos particularly had it tough, with him dying 5 occasions in lane by the ten minute mark.
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That is on prime of kory and LakatosD being accused of matchfixing in Counter-Strike, although they’re each nonetheless allowed to compete because the allegations had been by no means confirmed. kory’s LoL title is similar, whereas LakatosD goes by SZLOBESZKOV in Counter-Strike.
Viewers additionally seen that the gamers’ expressions within the webcams hardly ever modified and that none of them talked for the whole length of each matches, a weird incidence for a professional sport.
What’s extra, the webcam for the participant labeled as Balukos matches the looks of Lesterik, a former primary roster participant who had been moved to “substitute”.
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Balukos’ title is listed as Luka Glisic, whereas Lesterik’s title is Danijel Šego, making it unimaginable to inform in the event that they actually did get a brand new participant and simply looped their former participant’s webcam or if the actual Lesterik was actively taking part in for the staff.
Both means, as a result of these inconsistencies and a number of other spots the place the staff gave the impression to be purposely throwing the match (particularly in sport 1), the whole org has been booted from the league efficient instantly for matchfixing and breaking a number of components of the league’s code of conduct.
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