LCK is also reporting match-fixing! A conscientious Korean import is under suspicion: deliberately underperforming in a match against Faker

Hello to all LPL viewers and League of Legends summoners, this is World Game Hub.

The biggest incident in the first segment of LPL this year is undoubtedly the match-fixing by TES jungler Cream. His double振奋 in playoffs became a bizarre tale, and subsequent investigation confirmed match-fixing, leading to a lifetime ban.

Recently, a match in LCK has also been questioned by Korean netizens, involving a Korean import who previously played in LPL.

LCK also reports match-fixing, UCAL under suspicion

The situation is as follows: in a recent LCK league match, T1 defeated KRX with a 2-0 score. Both teams had some issues with their competitive state, but in the first game, a particular scene occurred.

At 30 minutes and 34 seconds into the game, a small-scale team fight erupted in the middle lane.

In this engagement, T1's Oner initiated from the flank, attacking the opposing jungler first. KRX members came to support, and the Anivia stunned Oner. The decision at that moment was to prioritize eliminating Oner, but mid-laner Ucal's Ryze directly used his ultimate to teleport himself and the EZ between T1's middle lane first and second towers. Meanwhile, Doran TP'd down and coordinated with T1 to counterattack.

Because KRX lacked their dual carries' damage output initially, the team fight, which originally seemed advantageous, turned into a counterattack by T1, leading to KRX losing members first. At this point, KRX's dual carries were completely disconnected and could only choose to walk toward the battlefield. The EZ used a remote ultimate to support but it was ineffective.

The result was KRX's defeat in the team fight. Peyz followed up with a chasing ultimate, eliminating two players. Only the instigator Ryze survived from KRX and chose to recall, but it was futile as T1 pushed and destroyed the base. This move by Ucal was reported by Korean netizens, suspected to be a match-fixing operation.

Ucal personally explained, denying match-fixing

Ucal is a player many are familiar with. He previously played for the TT team in LPL for a long time and was regarded by viewers as a conscientious Korean import. Although his results weren't great, he consistently displayed a positive competitive attitude and performed well in interviews.

Among his most memorable matches was when Ucal led his team to finally secure their first win and wept on the stage. This is the main reason why he is called a conscientious Korean import.

After returning to LCK, being suspected of match-fixing has surprised many viewers.

After the controversy arose, Ucal quickly responded, explaining his actions with sincerity and stating that he absolutely did not engage in match-fixing, attributing it to a mere mistake.

Ucal's explanation was that when the opponent TP'd behind, his original idea was to stay back alone to block the retreat path, securing the position to trap and eliminate the enemy. However, the outcome differed completely from his expectation. After it turned out this way, he felt both ashamed and saddened, apologized sincerely, and assured everyone that he definitely did not engage in match-fixing.

Whether Ucal engaged in match-fixing depends on team voice communication

Here we can analyze the situation at that time, considering Ucal's explanation to see if Ryze's mistaken move can be justified. First, look at the timing of Ryze's TP: from the footage, it's clear he cast his ultimate before the Rumble TP'd. He claimed he saw the opponent TP and wanted to stay back alone to block the retreat path.

This point is somewhat questionable; it's unclear if Ucal's expression was accurate. He did not cast his ultimate after the Rumble TP'd.

Then, regarding the purpose of his ultimate, personally, it could barely be logically justified. His idea might have been to trap Peyz, with his frontline teammates turning back to cooperate with him to eliminate Peyz first. However, the frontline teammates clearly didn't retreat but instead fought head-on with T1.

Ucal said he intended to drive away alone, which also makes sense because he indeed couldn't decide whether his teammates would join the ride.

But the key point is that his teammates didn't follow. Ryze's ultimate has a duration allowing teammates to decide to join or not. Actually, Ucal should have stepped out of the ultimate range when he saw his teammates fighting upfront. Cooperating with frontline teammates might have been the optimal solution.

To determine whether this move involved match-fixing, the key point is to examine the team voice communication—what was discussed at that moment. If Ucal didn't call his teammates when casting his ultimate, the suspicion would be greater.