A regular-season League of Legends European Championship match between Excel and Team Vitality caused significant delays after an in-game bug led to the game being replayed from scratch.
The week-two match of the LEC season was set to begin at 6 pm CET and kicked off strongly in Excel’s favor. Excel started the split positively with a 2-1 record in week one. Excel managed to secure an early 3,000 gold lead against Vitality after its recent roster change. All Excel had to do was secure the fourth dragon and accompanying Infernal Soul.
Shortly before an imminent dragon fight, Vitality mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković attempted to use Sylas’ ultimate to steal Lissandra ultimate from opposing mid laner Erlend “nukeduck” Våtevik Holm. Due to the latter’s Banshee’s Veil, Perkz’s attempt was unsuccessful. However, Perkz quickly enacted a pause. He claimed that the Banshee’s signature aura, which show that the champion has the item and will ignore the next ability that hits them, was not showing.
League officials confirmed this and set about enforcing a Chronobreak. The rare procedure allows the match to be reversed to an earlier game state before the bug had taken place. The goal was to let the two teams continue the match from that point. The name Chronobreak comes from Ekko’s ultimate.
The broadcast talent did their best to keep audiences entertained during the pause. The desk even invited NLC host Alexandre “Archarom” Maia from the crowd to play an unplugged electric guitar on stage into host Trevor “Quickshot” Henry’s microphone.
Excel beats Team Vitality after bug forces restart
Eventually, almost an hour and a half after the pause began, the decision was made to remake the game from scratch as the Chronobreak could not be completed successfully. The official game finally began around two hours later than expected.
Excel was able to get back to the level that it had shown in the first attempt. This time the squad secured an early 22-minute Infernal Soul and a 4.5k gold lead. Vitality did its best to turn the tide. The eventual losers staged a number of teamfights, picking up a Baron and even securing an Elder Dragon buff while gaining a gold lead of its own.
Excel held out against Team Vitality’s comeback attempts, finally taking control after a failed Azir ultimate from Perkz . XL swept a late-game team fight to close out Excel’s third win of the split.
