The League of Legends Demacia Cup’s first phase has kicked off. On the first day, caster teams Chengqiang and Guozi debuted. Ning Wang’s squad was crushed by LGD. While commentating live, the casters agreed that the LPL teams and players looked weak. When they played themselves, they couldn’t even contest with the lowest-ranked LPL teams, showing a significant difference between ex-professionals and current pros.

LGD won this match 2:1, which looks like a full series on paper. However, it was called a blowout because in the second game, LGD encountered a severe bug: multiple players disconnected one after another. Even after reconnecting, the problem persisted for a long time with no resolution. Eventually, LGD was forced to forfeit, allowing Ning Wang’s team to claim a small victory. Calling it an unearned win seems quite accurate.

Fortunately, the last game had no disconnection issues, or else Chengqiang’s team would have won. The second caster team, led by Guozi, faced WE. Although WE had Wink, a recently retired player, there was still a big gap between the teams. WE crushed Guozi’s team 2:0. In this BO3, Guozi’s team was completely dominated, and after this match, Cryin probably won’t be bold enough to harshly criticize others on stream anymore.

The final match was a battle between official teams: UP versus LNG. UP also ran into trouble. After an easy first game win, UP experienced network fluctuations similar to LGD’s in the second match. The club paused the game to investigate and found no issues with the base network. However, players couldn’t get back into the game for a long time, which violated tournament rules. The officials thus directly awarded the loss to UP, and LNG won 2:1.

Both these teams actually faced the same bug — client packet loss. This bug has existed for a while and many streamers have encountered it during broadcasts. Once disconnected, neither quitting nor restarting the computer helps; the game just won’t reconnect. Experienced players have faced this issue multiple times, but it’s surprising it showed up even on the tournament server. The nickname “grassroots team” really isn’t undeserved.

If the problem was the base network, the players’ cameras would freeze. But during UP and LGD’s disconnections, their cameras worked fine with no lag. This confirms it was a client bug. Although the Demacia Cup is not an official LPL event, it is still a fairly formal competition. Having two teams affected by bugs on the very first day is really tough to handle.

It’s just that UP doesn’t have many fans, so they have to accept the loss quietly. If it were IG or BLG, their fanbases would probably erupt in outrage. After the first day, the two caster teams’ skill levels are clear — neither will likely advance. Winning even one major match would be considered a success. Ale’s third game was the most bizarre: in blind pick mode, both he and Sasi chose Rumble but were completely outclassed in lane.

Ale’s Rumble went 1-7, Sasi’s was 5-4. No wonder no team wanted Ale after he left JDG; he really isn’t very good. Previously on stream, Ale arrogantly claimed he was better than 80% of active players. Yet he was utterly dominated by an LDL-level top laner. A few days ago, he said his tank play was on par with Bin’s, but it looks like he won’t even reach phase two to face Bin again.

Conclusion:

The client bug remains unfixed, and the teams had to bear the consequences. Luckily, the organizer is a streaming platform; otherwise, the official body would be heavily criticized. Last night, Riot abruptly updated and maintained the game, probably in response to complaints about the bug during the tournament, rushing a fix. This is an old problem that’s only now getting attention — truly baffling.

So, do you think UP’s loss was fair?

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