2025 LPL Finals: A Clash with “Net Caught”
Just a few days ago, TES officially became the champion of LPL 2025 Split 1 after defeating AL with a score of 3-1 in the finals. In reality, this was quite a “one-sided” match as TES completely dominated AL for most of the match duration, making the victory seem almost inevitable. Therefore, the notable point of this finals match was its controversial moment during game 4 when viewers could clearly see TES struggling with this decision.
What’s noteworthy here is that the organizing committee of the tournament has not publicly explained any reasons or justifications for this controversial moment in the finals. Only when former CKTG champion 2019 – Crisp went live and responded to fans did the community get to know the real reasons behind this issue. Not only did Crisp express his disappointment, but he also provided quite harsh comments regarding the conditions of the finals match.
“Do you think the struggle in game 4 was justified? The organizing committee or commentators never seem to explain, maybe they’re too afraid to admit the truth. When it happened, Cream’s (TES’s jungler) machine suddenly crashed, while others were still fully connected, even AL’s side. I genuinely believe that the machines on stage have extremely poor quality, playing a game while also having such complicated issues. I thought I was playing in a ‘net caught’ situation that shouldn’t have occurred in the LPL finals.” – Crisp expressed his disappointment.
The Situation at LPL Reflects Riot’s General Issues
It is important to note that this is not the first time professional tournaments organized by Riot Games have faced criticism regarding the conditions of play. This is also a common issue for Riot when trying to cut costs on the operational expenses of the tournaments. Recently, VALORANT superstar TenZ has made similar remarks. This professional player stated that the conditions at VCT (the major competitive league for VALORANT) were unacceptable, even mentioning that the audio equipment provided by Riot was too poor.
In a fair assessment, major tournaments for League of Legends or VALORANT often receive significant scrutiny from the audience. Therefore, any slight mistake, no matter how minor, is always noted and can lead to backlash against Riot. Meanwhile, Riot can use the excuse of high costs as a reason for their poor explanations, but for high-profile tournaments, the conditions must be improved to meet audience expectations. Hopefully, there will be improvements in the near future (before the First Stand 2025) and not allow unfortunate incidents like this to recur.
