Snowball Bug at League All-Star 2015?

League of Legends is a billion dollar industry. In 2014, the game grossed to $956 million and with the addition of professional players’ networth.[1]

One of the most anticipated 1v1 battles in the 2015 LoL All-Star in Los Angeles, California was “Best ADC NA” versus “Best MID EU”. No matter how unsuccessful their respective team records were in the last 3 splits, everyone knew that NA’s Doublelift and EU’s Froggen are mechanically gifted players of the West. *queue gunslinger duel music*

I was in attendance for this best-of-3 duel. I made a sign that read “Pogchamp! NA | Home of the FREE“. Someone had to say it.

The first round started with Doublelift as Lucian and Froggen using Nasus. It was a conventional first game with DL winning the match convincingly. Second round, same result. Or was it?

See, Doublelift’s Twitch was recalling in a bush when Froggen’s Olaf threw a snowball just a split-second before Doublelift returned to base. Any League player would press the snowball spell again to go follow the opponent’s location to deal damage, and that’s what Froggen did. However, he ended up homing Doublelift’s recall back to base. Take note: when a champion goes on an enemy’s base, the champion will receive devastating damage which always usually results in a death. And Froggen’s Olaf died instantly. He took off his headphones in frustration as Doublelift laughs hysterically with his head on his keyboard.

After much negotiation from Froggen to the officials and due to the crowd’s demand, they played another match. With a 1-0 score in Doublelift’s favor, they tried again. This may sound like a bad joke, but Froggen found himself in Doubelift’s base, again. Dead.

No one could believe it. The spectator next to me kept saying, “Play again! That’s a bug!”

Any experienced League of Legends player knows that if they are trying to recall and get hit by the opponent at about .5 seconds before the recall is completed, they’ll receive the damage. This is accepted. The Snowball dealt damage, and it did not stop the recall. That’s why to me, it was a legitimate hit without stopping the recall. I think Riot intended its player to be able to back with just .5 seconds left of their recall. It adds more excitement and relief for the player. So, I firmly believe that Froggen’s deaths in the base were legitimate and that they should have counted them instead of giving him runbacks. But what do I know?

Games will certainly have bugs. That’s why Riot comes out with new patches every month trying to fix coding issues and balancing problems.  It’s just impossible to avoid.

Like Rasheed Wallace would say, “BALL DON’T LIE!”

HELP ME! It won’t even take a minute!

[1] Chalk, Andy. “League of Legends Has Made Almost $1 Billion in Microtransactions.” PC Gamer. Accessed December 21, 2015. http://www.pcgamer.com/league-of-legends-has-made-almost-1-billion-in-microtransactions/.

Keith Esteban <<DialecticBrown>>