League of Legends pro banned for win trading and toxicity

A League of Legends professional was banned from competitive play for a variety of offenses, including Elo boosting, account sharing, win trading, and toxicity.

A competitive ruling against an Ultraliga team coach was announced on February 16 by Riot Games following various rule violations. Maroon Bells, a team in the Ultraliga 2nd Division, saw their coach suspended from pro play for a year following the accusations, which included win trading and toxicity.

Ultraliga coach suspended for win trading and toxicity

Konrad “Kaseko” Szewczak, the head coach of Ultraliga 2nd Division competitor Maroon Bells, has been suspended from participating at the professional level following a long list of infractions against the competitive code for LoL esports.

The charges against Kaseko are varied, but here’s what each of them means. The in-game toxicity points to harassing teammates through the in-game chat with pings and various other means. This in itself is rarely enough to make Riot Games suspend a player, though there are examples of particularly disrespectful behavior being met with a competitive ruling.

Elo boosting is the act of playing on the account of a lower-ranked player to rank them up by smurfing to grant easy wins. On the other side, win trading is the act of arranging for a member of the enemy or yourself to intentionally throw the game when playing against the other. This is usually done at high ranks to help the benefitting player to climb the ranks or prevent them from demoting to a lower rank.

According to Riot Games, Kaseko had committed these infractions multiple times across multiple seasons, across both European and North American servers.

Kaseko has been banned from competitive play for a full year until February 16, 2023. These sorts of occurrences tend to be rare, but always shake up the community when they appear. Fans on various social media platforms were surprised by such a blatant disregard for the code of conduct.