Clash, the League of Legends amateur tournament mode, has been plagued with problems since its inception – and last weekend saw another chapter penned in its embarrassing history.
Ever since we got the announcement that it was coming back, we have been excited about it. Last weekend was supposed to mark the return of LoL Clash, the League of Legends in-client tournament mode. Unfortunately – but to no one’s surprise – it was delayed yet again after issues with the Europe West (EUW) and Europe Nordic and East (EUNE) servers.
The jinxed tournament mode
LoL Clash is billed as a tournament mode available through the LoL client. It promises players the opportunity to form teams of five and compete against teams of a similar level for various in-game prizes.
The mode was first mentioned way back in 2017 and had its open beta in December that year. League of Legends developer Riot Games promised to bring it out in May 2018 with bi-weekly League of Legends tournaments and progressive rewards. To participate, players had to be over level 30 and had to use special event tickets available through missions, purchases or prizes.
While the idea of LoL Clash was appealing, Riot Games has struggled with its realization. After multiple failed attempts to launch the tournament, Clash has reached a meme status in the community. The tournament’s multiple failed starts caused many jokes at Riot’s expense and the fan nickname “Crash” is still going strong.
After each time, Riot would pull the mode out to make further adjustments, eventually developing into a long “second beta” phase that included worldwide events across two weekends in December 2019.
The latest chapter
Last week, Riot appeared confident that this latest attempt to bring tournament play to the LoL masses would finally work, but then Saturday brought us this:
It's with much sadness we have to delay the EUW and EUN Clash launch from this weekend to next. Server issues (unrelated to Clash) have been impacting those regions for the past 48 hours in ways we can't give a solid Clash experience. This delay sucks after many prior delays
— Riot Brightmoon (@RiotBrightmoon) February 22, 2020
Suffice to say, the explanation that this was due to server issues unrelated to LoL Clash did not go over well. The developers said that the event would start this weekend instead. We wish them the best of luck. League of Legends and its community deserve a functional tournament mode. Frankly, it is embarrassing for a company of Riot’s caliber to continually fail to deliver something it promised over two years ago and has no doubt put a lot of work into.
Hopefully, by this time next week, we will be able to write about the first successful LoL Clash tournament. Also, hopefully in October, we will see a European team win Worlds. At present, we consider the second event more likely.
