This League of Legends bug made both teams lose in ranked

League of Legends bugs aren’t rare in the slightest. From gimmicky interactions to clearly unintended glitches, there’s a lot. One recent bug, however, is turning heads.

After two Master-ranked teams both came out of a 17-minute long ranked game with defeat on their match history, questions were raised. What sort of bug could cause 10 players to all lose the very same game, even though five of them had won?

Youtuber Vandiril is League’s most prolific discoverer of bugs, glitches, and unusual interactions. He took a break from his usual oath of silence in his videos to address exactly what happened.

In the video, Vandiril explains the situation. Two Master-ranked profiles were playing a ranked solo queue game against one another. The game begins to snowball quickly, and the blue team begins rapidly setting up to finish the game.

In fact, by the 17-minute mark, they’ve taken all three of their enemies’ inhibitors and the Nexus is rapidly dwindling. The blue team pushes the red squad back into their fountain and deals the final points of damage to destroy the Nexus.

The Nexus’ dying animation begins, precluding the defeat/victory screen. It is at this moment that the alleged bug takes place. All 10 players, having seen the Nexus’ death animation begin, exit the game preemptively.

The Nexus is dead, the animation has started, surely it’s safe to leave?

How do both teams lose in League of Legends

It turns out that the Nexus wasn’t destroyed.

A Taric jungle one-trick named lightrocket2 checked his match history to discover the presumed victory was actually a loss. Viewing the records of the match, he’s correct, both teams appear to have lost the match, but neither lost any ranked standing.

Vandiril’s thesis is that all the players leaving at the exact moment that it was transitioning into a win/loss state caused the game to go into a strange limbo of sorts.

Take this as a cautionary tale to not count your chickens before they hatch, and to wait out the Nexus’ final animation.