In a stunning turn Riot Games has announced that pro-favorite Gragas has been disabled for the remainder of the League of Legends World Championships. It comes following a bug that caused a remake in the quarter-final game between Fnatic and Edward Gaming.
Bug causes Gragas to be disabled for remainder of League of Legends World Championships
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
The bug was discovered when Fnatic were unable to use Gragas’ Q ability -- Barrel Toss -- during their game with EDG. Initially it was believe this was a rare edge case, but upon investigation Riot found that the bug was far more prevalent than initially believed. A similar problem was found with Lux and Ziggs, who have also been disabled for the remainder of the tournament.
While neither Lux nor Ziggs were likely to appear, Gragas has been a go-to Jungler for a majority of pro teams. The Score eSports reports that Gragas has been picked or banned in 33 of the 63 games so far, with a majority of European teams favoring him in the jungle. This is a huge change with mammoth ramifications for the finals games.
With Gragas pulled from the pool it’s likely Rek’Sai will now become a hotly-contested pick. The shift has a major potential to shakeup the pick/ban order in semifinals and the grand finals. This has a knock on problem where siege lineups could be greatly effected by having a Rek’Sai on the opposition. Essentially, disabling Gragas will have a domino effect on the remainder of games, and it’s less-than-ideal to have this happen so late into Worlds.
Origen and SK Telecom T1 will be the first teams to experience the change in their semifinal best-of-five series on Saturday. It remains to be seen how much the Gragas disable will effect their contest.
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