The first round robin of the LoL Worlds 2022 group stage has been plagued by bugs, leaving players and fans frustrated.
No Riot Games tournament would be complete without its fair share of bugs, pauses, and general gameplay issues.
And Worlds 2022 has been no exception. As the group stage continues in New York’s Madison Square Gardens, matches continue to be plagued by game-breaking bugs.
The first noticeable bug of the tournament came in Rogue’s matchup versus GAM Esports. Emil ‘Larssen’ Larssen’s Orianna experienced a bug with her Precision: Shockwave (ultimate) indicator, making the spell impossible for GAM to dodge and securing Rogue an important teamfight victory.
Shortly after the bug was discovered, Riot Games disabled Orianna “until further notice”. But she’s not the only champion experiencing issues — as two more game-breaking bugs have been discovered in the last 24 hours.
TES vs DRX boomerang bug
The first of the two bugs was discovered in Top Esports’ game versus DRX. In a top lane dive, TES’s top laner Huang ‘Wayward’ Ren-Xing attempted to make his escape from Hwang ‘Kingen’ Seong-hoon’s Gnar.
Normally, Gnar’s boomerang travels in a straight line outwards from Gnar and returns to him along the same trajectory. However, a bug caused Kingen’s Boomerang Throw (Q) to suddenly go off-course when returning to Gnar, hitting Wayward when it should have missed him completely.
The bug resulted in Wayward taking just enough damage for Kingen to finish him off — a kill that would not have gone through had the bug not occurred.
According to Gnar players, the bug has existed since the champion’s release.
G2 vs JD Gaming Darius bug
The second bug came in G2 Esports’ matchup versus JD Gaming.
Coming into the most crucial team fight of the game, G2 Esports were ahead in kills — no mean feat into one of the tournament favorites. The fight started off poorly for G2, with support Raphaël ‘Targamas’ Crabbé finding himself caught out in the mid lane by JDG’s entire team.
And the fight went from bad to worse when top laner Sergen ‘BrokenBlade’ Çelik encountered a bug with Darius’ ultimate. If an enemy dies before Darius can finish his ultimate animation on them, the ultimate shouldn’t go on cooldown.
Brokenblade attempted to use Noxian Guillotine on JDG’s Zeng ‘Yagao’ Qi, but jungler Marcin ‘Jankos’ Jankowski killed the mid laner while the ultimate was channeling. Brokenblade should then have been able to use his ultimate again, but the ability had gone on cooldown.
It’s debatable whether the bug was solely responsible for G2 losing the fight (and subsequently the game), but it was the third game-breaking bug to be seen at Worlds in as many days.
Riot has yet to comment on whether Darius or Gnar will be disabled moving forwards.