T1 mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok has struggled all season with troll accounts in solo queue, but now Riot has finally responded to the issue.
Around nine accounts have reportedly been permanently banned after being used specifically to snipe Faker’s solo queue games and troll him. This has been a problem this whole season for the T1 superstar, which has set him back a ton in climbing the Korean solo queue ladder. The bans happened just a few days after Faker publicly complained about the issue live on stream with thousands of viewers watching.
The bans for the troll accounts were recently discovered through Faker’s own OP.gg page, where several of his teammates over the past few days are now marked as permabanned. It’s still likely that yet more of these accounts exist, but it seems that Riot is responding to the complaints from Faker after many months of his struggling with troll accounts.
Faker has previously complained about the lack of action taken from Riot in this case, as these troll accounts have clearly been ruining the T1 mid laner’s games when he was streaming. According to Faker himself, he doesn’t think that it should be his job to spot all these troll accounts, and instead Riot should act quicker so Faker can practice in solo queue as he should be able to.
This isn’t the first time this past year that Korean solo queue has been a bit of a mess. Back in December, it was revealed by former Team Liquid support Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung that illegal betting is ruining the solo queue experience of certain professional players.
Olleh revealed that illegal betting sites in China provide users a chance to bet against professional players in solo queue, which led to other accounts intentionally ruining the pro player’s game to gain profit through these sites. As expected, Faker was one of the main victims of this practice as he remains the most popular player out there.
As problems for the most popular players in Korean solo queue continue, it’s starting to look like Riot needs to put a greater emphasis on getting it all sorted out.
