Twitch streamer Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp went through a live League of Legends match that didn’t seem right to him. That’s why he scoured the stats afterwards and found that his jungler and the opposing supporter were working together. The e-sports organization Team Ambition, in which both players were active, reacted immediately.

What did Tyler1 notice?

• In one match the jungler in Tyler1’s team showed a weak performance. He was 0/5/0 after 15 minutes and was not even on the top lane, where the twitch streamer would have needed support – even if he of course knows every position in the game.
• Already within the match Tyler1 would have the suspicion that there was something not going on correctly. Afterwards he searched the match history of the players and found a clear inconsistency.
• For example, the opposing supporter Chocovanille always played in a match with the player R5 Jungle in the last weeks. However, they could not register as a team, because from the rank Master there is only a SoloQ.
• So R5 Jungle was either in the team with Chocovanille and then won the matches or ended up in the opposing team and lost avoidably on purpose.
• The curious thing: Chocovanille was probably officially the coach of R5 Jungle.

Cue sniping between player and coach

What exactly is the trick there? Chocovanille and R5 Jungle signed up for a ranked at the same time and only played when they ended up in a match together. The goal was probably to boost Chocovanille’s ranking, because R5 Jungle deliberately lost if he ended up on the opposing team. This interaction is called boosting and is not allowed in LoL.

What is curious about the boosting action?

• For one thing, Chocovanille proudly celebrated her rise to the rank of Master on Twitter. Now that the cheating has come to light, many fans feel that this is very brazen. Tyler1 still showed this tweet live in the stream. In the meantime, the account has been switched to private.
• On the other hand, Chocovanille was still a coach for Team Ambition Sussy, the junior team of Team Ambition, until the livestream. There she coached, among others, the jungler Anti, who is supposed to be behind the account R5 Jungle.

Chocovanille was apparently boosted by the jungler she coaches herself.

How did the ESports organization react? A few hours after the stream, there was a reaction. Luis “Rey” Lagunes, Head of Staff at Team Ambition, shared… on Twitter that the two have been kicked off the team. Team Ambition does not support such behavior and it violates the integrity of the organization. Team Ambition itself is only an amateur team, but fought in the qualification for the entry into the LCS Proving Grounds, in which also the training teams of CLG, Cloud9 or TSM play. There is no statement from Chocovanille and Anti yet. Both have switched their Twitter accounts to private and Chocovanille even changed her account name to not be found so easily.

While it is possible to cheat in LoL with tricks in the queue, the MOBA is otherwise almost free of hackers and cheaters. How come? LoL has no hackers compared to other PvP games – But why is that?