KT Rolster’s head coach Hirai got angry at the referee in their match with GenG last week when they paused the match after KT Aiming purchased a Statikk Shiv in-game, a currently banned item in LCK games.
Due to a bug, Statikk Shiv was banned by Riot Korea in tournament games, and KT Rolster as well as other teams were notified twice about this. KT’s ADC Aiming however made the purchase during the first round of LCK Summer between KT and GenG and was later made to sell the item for 900 gold.
During the pause to settle the dispute however, KT’s head coach Hirai got into a heated exchange with the referee. He allegedly insulted them with undisclosed ‘inappropriate words’ and was thereby issued a warning. He later apologized to the referee in question. Taking that into consideration, Riot decided to fine Hirai 2,000,000 KRW and suspend him for 2 weeks as punishment.
Riot has always been intolerant of this kind of outburst and behavior and hopes to make examples of such incidents. It was quite an expensive Statikk Shiv!
To be fair, Riot KR should have disabled the item in-game in the first place. Pro players rely a lot on muscle memories and sometimes just buy an item out of habit, not keeping in mind that it’s banned.
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