The Copenhagen Wolves have forfeited their week four League Championship Series match against ROCCAT today, Riot Games revealed. The Wolves didn’t submit the proper paperwork to use a substitute player after the team’s mid laner, Viktor “cowTard” Stymne, took himself out of the lineup late last night due to illness.
The Riot Games rulebook requires teams to submit a “summary sheet” and “eligibility form” by 11:59pm PT the day before a match to render a player eligible to compete in the LCS.
The Copenhagen Wolves contacted Riot Games before the deadline by email, notifying Riot at 8:26pm PT that they would in fact be using Džiugas “Mazzerin” Repčys in place of the ailing Stymne. But the Wolves manager did not know what paperwork was required, and thus asked Riot for assistance.
Riot Games, though, did not respond to the Wolves’ inquiry for nearly nine hours, well past the deadline to submit the proper paperwork.
“We did manage to get Mazzerin from Lithuania to Cologne on time and the team was sent to the studio,” stated Copenhagen Wolves, on their Facebook page. “However Riot explained to us that they did not have the required paperwork on Mazzerin to allow him to participate in today’s match.”
The Copenhagen Wolves may be suffering from a bit of a draconian interpretation of Riot Games’ rules, as well as a bit of a U.S. West Coast-centric schedule for Riot—the Wolves’ initial inquiry was at 5:26am CT (8:26pm PT), early in the morning in Europe, but the response from Riot Games was not until well into the European afternoon, or very early morning at the Los Angeles Riot office.
Maybe if Riot Games had a European esports manager, or if Copenhagen Wolves had sent their email inquiry to a different person, Wolves may have been able to play their match tonight.
Still, the team is maintaining an upbeat attitude about the unfortunate situation, even after what was likely a costly plane ticket to fly Repčys in to Cologne from Lithuania on time. And they’ll probably be better prepared next time.
“It has been a bad day for us at the Wolves but tomorrow we will try to bite back,” the team wrote in a statement. “We have nineteen matches to go and we intend to give everything we can to leave this uncomfortable situation!”
Repčys will make his LCS debut tomorrow as Copenhagen Wolves take on SK Gaming. Wolves currently sit at 2-6, tied for last in the league due to the forfeit that boosted ROCCAT to 2-7.
Published: Jun 12, 2014 01:22 pm