LPL team to play remotely from China at MSI 2022

Riot Games have confirmed that the LPL’s representative for MSI 2022 will compete remotely from their team facilities or the LPL’s Shanghai arena due to travel restrictions and the region’s summer split deadline.

 The 2022 Mid-Season Invitational kicks off in Busan on May 10, with teams from across the world coming together to compete in the first international League tournament of 2022.

But not every team will be able to compete from Busan’s BEXCO exhibition hall. Ongoing travel restrictions and the deadline for the summer split meant that the LPL’s representative would have been unable to compete at the international event and make the trip back to China in time for the start of LPL summer on June 9. This is because of the mandatory three-week quarantine period required upon entry into China.

On April 21, Riot confirmed that, in order to allow the LPL to compete at the tournament, the LPL’s representative would not be attending MSI in person. They will instead play from either their team facilities or the LPL’s Shanghai arena, accessing the MSI tournament servers remotely.

Maintaining competitive integrity

One of the key issues surrounding remote play is the question of ping. When playing on a localized tournament server, as is the case at most international League events, latency is almost non-existent – with the average tournament ping sitting at around 9-10.

However, connecting remotely to a Korean server from Shanghai would mean much higher latency for the LPL’s representative. And in a game with such split-second decision making as League, ensuring equal latency is a cornerstone of maintaining competitive integrity.

• Read more: MSI 2022 heading for Busan, Korea: Qualified teams, schedule, format

In order to combat this issue, Riot have confirmed they will be artificially inflating the ping of all teams playing on LAN at the tournament in order to match the ping of the Chinese representative playing remotely.

This means that ping for these matches will sit at around 35, which, while not ideal, is a manageable level of delay that most players will be used to from playing in their respective region’s solo queue.

This is not the first time artificial ping inflation has been used by Riot in order to ensure integrity in remote play. At the 2020 Mid-Season Cup, LPL teams played on servers located in Korea as the tournament was forced online due to the global health crisis. At that tournament, ping was also artificially inflated to even the playing field, and minimal issues were reported.

The LPL’s representative for MSI 2022 is as-yet undecided. Top Esports and Royal Never Give Up will fight for the chance to represent their region internationally on April 23 in the LPL Spring finals.