T1 forced to pause streams, begs Riot to take action against DDoS attacks: ‘Fulfill your responsibilities’

Leading Korean esports organization T1 announced today its players are postponing League of Legends streams until further notice due to ongoing DDoS attacks.

“It is with deep frustration that we must announce the indefinite suspension of our players of our players streams due to ongoing DDos attacks,” T1 wrote in a statement on June 8.

The org stressed how Riot Korea, a branch of Riot Games responsible for Korean League esports, and Riot Games, sought a “long-term solution” to the problem, which involves implementing more robust security measures and collaborating with internet service providers to identify and block malicious traffic. Still, they’ve been unable to solve the issue so far, and multiple teams experienced disruptions to their training schedules.

While a momentary fix by Riot Korea during MSI 2024 helped T1 prevent DDoS attacks, now the accounts of the players playing alongside them are being targeted and further “disrupting (their) live SoloQ sessions.”

Streaming is a critical revenue source for any esports organization, which also stands true for T1. “This situation forces us to pause our streams, resulting in significant financial implications for our organization,” the Korean team stated.

After T1’s loss against HLE, a defeat that relegated them to the lower bracket of the LCK playoffs, Faker spoke about the continuous DDoS attacks in the post-match conference, highlighting how they are significantly impacting their overall performance.

Later, the league had to introduce pre-recorded matches to counter the DDoS attacks during the LCK, playing the matches at an offline LoL arena server that foreign networks can’t affect.

“While some may perceive the inability to play SoloQ as a minor inconvenience, it is a critical component for high-level pro players in Korea to stay sharp, adapt to the meta, and maintain peak performance,” T1 wrote in its statement. Despite these hurdles, the team still reached the LCK Spring Split 2024 finals, where they ultimately fell short of Gen.G.

T1 urged Riot Korea and Riot Games to “fulfill their responsibilities and stop these attacks” so the situation returns to normalcy and the Korean esports players have a fair and competitive environment for the remaining year. Riot has not provided a statement on social media at the time of writing. Dot Esports has reached out to the developer for comment.