The LCS handed down a competitive ruling against ANEW Esports and former Wildcard Gaming jungler William “Trixter” Benoit on Friday. LCS Official found in an investigation that ANEW and Trixter violated league recruitment rules when ANEW attempted to poach Trixter from Wildcard gaming. 

As a result of the ruling, Trixter, Akash “ArgentumSky” Gupta, Edward “Eddy Lee” Lee, and Abhishek “Sidestep” Samadder have all received bans from participating in a Riot-sanctioned competitive league or event throughout the 2021 NA Amateur Competitive Season. DarkWings has been placed on probation for the 2021 season.

Timeline of events

Coming into 2021, the LCS altered the structure of the North American amateur League of Legends scene. Under the new structure, there are two tiers of Amateur play that can qualify teams for the LCS Proving Grounds tournament. As a result of the new stucture, ANEW Esports and Wildcard Gaming were offered the chance to register their players onto the Global Contract Database (GDC) in November of 2020.

The GCD is Riot’s official list of players who are contracted to League of Legends teams. Wildcard Gaming registered several players to the database in November, including Trixter.

Riot grants poaching protection to players who are placed on the GDC. This means no other organization is allowed to solicit those players, nor are the players on the GDC allowed to solicit employment from other organizations.

According to Riot’s investigation on January 24th, 2021 Trixter violated the anti-poaching rules by reaching out to ANEW Blaze mid laner Isaac “DarkWings” Chou with the intention of reaching ANEW Esports management with an employment request. This was after he was already registered to the GDC, making it a clear violation of the rules on the part of the player. 

After this, DarkWings reached out to ANEW coach ArgentumSky and ANEW owner Eddy Lee, who took things from there. It is important to note that, DarkWings was not aware of the contract status of Trixter, but both ArgentumSky and Eddy Lee were aware.

ArgentumSky and Eddy Lee reached out to ANEW Genesis’ coach Sidestep, who set up a trade offer with Wildcard Gaming. Trixter then requested release from Wildcard Gaming to go to ANEW. Wildcard Gaming refused ANEW's trade offer, at which point Trixter refused to play with Wildcard Gaming. It was at this point that Wildcard Gaming brought the matter to LCS Officials, who then carried out an investigation.

Competitive rulings

• Trixter was found to be in violation of rule 11.4.6 of the 2021 North American Amateur Rule Set and 14.4.9 of the 2021 LCS rule set, which prohibit GDC players from reaching out to another organization for employment.
  
  
• Trixter was also found in violation of rule 11.5.6 of the North American Amateur Rule Set and in 14.5.6 of the 2021 LCS Rule Set, which prohibit misrepresenting information to LCS officials.
  
  
• ArgentumSky and Sidestep were both found in violation of 11.4.6 of the North American Amateur Rule Set and rule 14.4.9 of the 2021 LCS Rule Set, which prohibit soliciting players who are on the GDC.
  
  
• Eddy Lee was found to be in violation of rule 11.4.6 of the North American Amateur Rule Set and rule 14.4.9 of the 2021 LCS Rule Set.
  
  
• Eddy Lee was also found to be in violation of rule 11.5.6 of the North American Amateur Rule Set and in 14.5.6 of the 2021 LCS Rule Set, in similar fashion to Trixter
  
  
• DarkWings was placed on Probation for 2021 for his role in ANEW’s poaching attempt

Any players who were playing for ANEW are still permitted to compete in Riot-sanctioned events. They will not be able to compete with ANEW Esports, but they retain any Circuit Points that they earned with the organization. You can read the full details in Riot’s official ruling.