Viego has seen almost no competitive play since his release. He was publicly disabled for the entirety of the 2021 League of Legends European Championship season thus far, and will be disabled for the Mid-Season Invitational as well. Despite being out of commission for MSI, a lot of the bugs that previously plagued the Ruined King have been ironed out, and subsequently, Viego has slowly started to step into the competitive meta. 

Viego has only seen four games of play worldwide — all four in Split 1 of the 2021 League of Legends Circuit Oceania — but was recently enabled for Upsurge matches that took place on April 14 in the North American amateur scene, on Patch 11.8, no less. 

In addition, Viego has been confirmed enabled for the upcoming CLoL Championships, which will be played on Patch 11.9 just like MSI 2021. Whether Viego will be enabled at higher levels of competition post-MSI has yet to be revealed, but given the context of MSI in the grand scheme of the 2021 League of Legends esports season, there are a multitude of reasons why the Ruined King would be disabled at MSI even if the majority of his well-documented bugs have been ironed out.

Michael "Miko" Ahn is best known as for his analyst work on Counter Logic Gaming Academy, but he is also a head coach in the collegiate League of Legends scene with Arizona State University. Miko's assumption is that the stakes are too high at MSI 2021 to enable Viego since Riot Games has not, with certainty removed every single bug: "It'd be so embarrassing PR wise to have to reset a game on an international event because of a bug, right?"

Miko's theory makes a fair amount of sense. Aside from the World Championship, MSI is the biggest event of the year, and if more Viego bugs continue to affect competition, it'd be much easier to contain and address an issue in a CLoL match instead of on a global stage.

However, even without the bugs, there are other reasons that Viego could be disabled for MSI, including tournament realm access given to pros before the event as well as a potential lack of familiarity with the Ruined King in a competitive context. 

"I believe the big thing was that for MSI, pro players have access to tournament realm (TR) accounts, While Clol players do not and will have to play on live servers the entire time," said Grand Canyon University head coach Sean Shannon. "Also, that Gwen and Viego are both disabled for MSI I believe also goes with no teams practicing with/against those champs, especially Viego."

Shannon's points make a great deal of sense in and out of context of Viego's plethora of bugs. The Ruined King, as far as competitive teams are concerned, is as "new" as Gwen, the Hallowed Seamstress, who was released last month.

Regardless of reason, it's clear that there are plenty of intangibles surrounding Viego in the competitive landscape, ones that Riot would certainly want to avoid on the international stage. Fans waiting to see Viego played at the highest level will have to wait until at least after MSI 2021, but if the Ruined King has made his amateur debut a few months after first being seen in the LCO, and will make his collegiate one soon, it's only a matter of time before he is enabled at all levels of play.