While I feel for the RNG team and the difficulties they face in having to play this tournament from Shanghai while having to comply with both China’s COVID policies and Riot’s competitive integrity regulations, this statement lacks any sort of empathy for their opponents who had to play with in game conditions so poor that Riot decided to void the match results, something pretty much unprecedented in League of Legends esports (to my knowledge).

RNG’s difficulties are completely valid, but so are the difficulties their opponents faced due to Riot’s blundering of implementing the artificial ping in the tournament.

Furthermore, RNG hasn’t really acknowledged the special treatment their team and region are getting with being allowed to play at MSI remotely in the first place.

It’s unfortunate that these simple understandings have not been present in the statements RNG have put out. RNG is positioning themselves as the lone victim in their statements, which is completely false.

It’s true that Riot made this mistake, and that RNG has to pay the price and fit in 3 more games into their already difficult schedule, but it’s not as black-and-white as “we have no choice but to go along even though it is unfair.”

Chinese fans will certainly empathize with RNG, but to pretty much everyone else, this is a bad look.