An in-game bug during the game between GAM Esports and Top Esports appears to have changed the 2022 League of Legends World Championship Group Stage. On Oct. 15, during the second meeting of the two teams in Group C, a faulty Maw of Malmortius led to Top Esports bot laner Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo dying prematurely during the siege of GAM’s Nexus. GAM Esports turned the fight around and ended the game, which would eventually lead to Top Esports’ elimination from Worlds 2022.
On the League of Legends subreddit, user prophet2g posted a thread discussing the bug, using a video from Chinese social medium Bilibili as its source.
At 40 minutes into the game, Top Esports is bombarding GAM’s base. GAM Esports jungler Đỗ “Levi” Duy Khánh presses his ultimate on Karthus which, per calculations done in the video, should do close to 1000 damage. JackeyLove, playing Lucian, sits at 1021 health. With Maw of Malmortius, which provides a shield upon taking critical magic damage, Lucian should survive Karthus’ ultimate with about 500 health. However, he drops to 91 health.
Top Esports support Ling “Mark” Xu heals JackeyLove instantly, but the bot laner is dragged away by GAM Esports’ top laner Trần “Kiaya” Duy Sang, who uses his Sett ultimate. Kiaya successfully kills the low-health Lucian. GAM Esports’ Nexus survives the offense just barely. The VCS champion then runs toward Top Esports’ base and wins the game.
On Twitter, bug hunter Vandiril shared a few slow motion videos to highlight the bug appearing.
Changing the outcome of Group C
The discussion quickly blew up on social media. Many argue that JackeyLove would have been able to destroy GAM’s Nexus if he had survived with the 600 health he should have had after Maw of Malmortius’ shield activated and Mark’s Nami healed him. JackeyLove had almost acquired all items on a full-damage Lucian, meaning his auto attacks would have dealt tremendous amounts of damage to the Nexus.
Had Top Esports won the game against GAM, the outcome of Group C would have been wildly different. If all the other games had played out as they did, Top Esports would have forced a three-way tie with DRX and Rogue. This would lead to tiebreaker games between the three teams to determine which two of them would advance to the Worlds 2022 Knockout Stage. Instead, Top Esports was eliminated, and Rogue and DRX qualified directly for the top eight of the tournament.
Although it is bitter for Top Esports, it is unlikely that Riot Games will force a rematch of the game between GAM and Top Esports. Riot’s policy maintains that players should pause the game if they notice a bug, upon which the referees investigate the matter.
Em Dash has reached out to Riot Games for a statement on the matter. This story will be updated accordingly.
