T1 suspends player streams after “deep frustration” over DDoS attacks

Four times League of Legends (LoL) world champion T1 expressed his “deep frustration” following the recent distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attacks on their players’ streams.

The statement was posted on their official social media channels on June 8th and included the announcement that they would once again be suspended indefinitely. This news was not well received by the community, especially given T1’s high profile.

T1 General Manager Jeong “Becker” Hoi-yoon stated on March 21 that DDoS attacks specifically targeting LoL players’ streaming and personal activities were still occurring, which is the first reason for the streaming outage.

After two months of countermeasures, on June 3, he announced that players would resume their streams after temporarily suspending them since April. However, the DDoS attacks occurred less than a week later, so starting June 8, they were forced to suspend streams again indefinitely.

The allegedly related issue began on February 25 during the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) group stage match between DRX and Dplus KIA. As a result, the best-of-three matches were interrupted eight times and took seven hours to complete.

The DDoS attacks continued, affecting the following matches on February 28 between T1 and FearX. After the first match had to be interrupted several times, the LCK decided to broadcast the second match as a recorded broadcast without an audience, with ticket holders of the matches being refunded.

LCK Secretary General Lee Jung-hoon issued an official apology on March 4, stating that they took steps to report the attacks on the LCK to the relevant authorities and law enforcement agencies immediately afterward, as they believe these attacks are clearly criminal acts. At the same time, they are working with Riot Games’ global teams, relevant departments, and internal and external experts to analyze the cause of the attack and take countermeasures.

It is unfortunate that the DDoS problem, which has been ongoing for six months, is still unresolved. Since it is outside the control of T1 or its ownership group, the South Korean organization is looking for long-term solutions from Riot Korea and Riot Games, which “unfortunately have not yet materialized.”

During MSI 2023, T1’s collaboration with Riot Korea resulted in the implementation of a solution to prevent the DDoS attacks targeting players. However, this instead resulted in attacks on those playing alongside T1 players, which still directly impacts players’ SoloQ experiences.

Despite this, T1 stressed that neither Riot Korea nor Riot Games are responsible for the challenges faced by T1 and other teams in SoloQ. The statement was made in the spirit of transparency and not with the intention of encouraging the community to take action against them.

You further represent that this statement is intended solely as a means of communicating with fans and that Riot has been informed of our intention to issue this statement.

The DDoS attack obviously not only makes T1 fans and LCK viewers sad, but also has a huge impact on T1 mentally and financially.

In his official statement of March 21, Becker stated that the attacks had affected the health and personal training of the players.

While some may find the inability to play SoloQ a minor inconvenience, it is a crucial factor for high-level professional players in Korea to stay fit, adapt to the meta, and maintain their peak performance, as mentioned in their last official announcement on June 8.

If T1 is unable to implement the streaming schedule, it may be difficult for the Company to meet its partnership obligations under the streaming agreements, which in turn would have significant financial consequences for the Company.

T1 has already stated that the message is not a call for fans or the community to take action against Riot Korea or Riot Games. However, the global LoL community remains disappointed.

LoL Esports host and interviewer Laure Valée “can’t believe this keeps happening,” while GAM Esports analyst Molecule hopes Riot Games “takes a step forward.”

At the time of writing, there is no statement from Riot Games and Riot Korea. We hope that the issue can be resolved before LCK Summer 2024 begins on June 12.

Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest update on the T1 DDoS attack story.