LoL: European Champion boss explains that 50% of teams cheat – Not just his, but he’s the best at it

Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez (31) is the boss of G2 Esports, the European champions, in League of Legends. In an interview he talks himself into a rage: half of all teams in the European league violate the transfer rules. Although he is always accused of illegally poaching players from other teams, he is still the most harmless in this game, but still the best.

Who is this?

• Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez was a midlaner himself in the early days of LoL, but switched to management early on and, with G2 Esports, raised the most successful team in Europe from 2014.
• However, Ocelote has remained a hot-blooded gamer at heart and likes to speak plain language that doesn’t sound like a CEO at all. He regularly derails and upsets the fans of competing teams animal. Above all, he sees the “Fnatic” team as the main competitor and wants to sabotage them in a targeted manner. So he issued a clause that “his star player” Perkz is not allowed to switch to Fnatic.
• Ahead of the 2022 season in LoL, Ocelote has made wild changes to his entire team, firing many stars and replacing them with unknowns. But success proves him right: In spring 2022, G2 became champions of the LEC again after beating the top favorites Rogue 3-0 in the final.

Rules threaten life bans for poaching players under contract

What rule do teams in LoL allegedly break? There are 3 rules in LoL’s Esports Global Penalty Index that prohibit “poaching” and “tampering” of players (via esports.assets).

In a nutshell:

• As long as a player still has a contract with a team, he must not be enticed by others to break this contract and change teams
• “Poaching” is therefore forbidden – in principle, players under contract may not be approached and certainly not poached
• All of these offenses are subject to extremely high penalties – we are talking about a 5-month ban from playing up to a lifetime ban

“Actually” only players or coaches who are “free agents” should be addressed, i.e. who are currently without a contract. In a running season, talks about transfers are strictly forbidden.

“I play by the same rules as others – and I play better”

What does Ocelote say about this: The head of G2 says in an interview with inventorythat practically nobody follows this rule. While he’s been accused of poaching players under contract in the past, G2 have suffered from poaching themselves:

• In 2015, G2 was poached the then best botlane in LoL, Zven and Mitchy
• the supporter hybrid was lost in 2016 in the middle of a tournament

Ocelote says:

Ultimately, while we’ve been around, we’ve been hit with poaching time and time again. I’m officially telling you that I’m not poaching anyone. But just between us, I’ll tell you, I play by the same rules as everyone else. And I play better!

ocelot

According to Ocelote, 50-60% of teams would poach the LEC, they would do it all the time: players would talk, get on discords, jump into calls, meet up with people.

He himself is still “pretty fucking tame”, so still pretty harmless. However, it is simply “very time-efficient,” says Ocelote with a laugh.

When asked that the MAD Lions accused him of trying to manipulate players in September 2021, Ocelote simply said: “Yeah, whatever. MAD Lions fuck off!”

At the time, G2 reportedly attempted to poach MAD Lions ADC “Carzzy” to replace their ADC Rekkles, who moved to the 2nd division.

Ocelote emphasizes:

The team we have right now came about by having conversations with people we were allowed to speak to. At these times. In fact, so officially, every player who has ever been to G2 has never been poached.

How to proceed? Unofficially, Ocelote says: Every good team in the league is facing poaching right now, both Fnatic and Rogue. Because both teams have an “insane” strong squad. The top players would be constantly approached on Discord.

The only way to change that would be to repeal the rule altogether. Until then, Ocelote and G2 would keep making fun of it, even though he’s having a hard time talking about the subject.

It’s a weird topic. I do not know. It’s an ugly conversation because everyone does it and everyone knows everyone does it. But every time someone is accused of doing it, everyone jumps up and goes, “Oh look at that guy!” They’re all doing the same thing, it’s just an ugly topic of conversation and I think it’s better to be them get rid of the rule altogether. But okay, that’s never going to happen. That’s just wishful thinking.

ocelot

How is this discussed? on reddit LoL players discuss the interview. Even if many there see Ocelote critically because he appears so aggressively, most agree with his core statement:

• Even in “normal sport” a corresponding rule would be constantly violated. Either Riot has to implement its rules consistently (which is considered impossible) or abolish them.
• In order to track compliance with the rule, Riot would have to seamlessly monitor every conversation, every discord, every personal message via social media – that’s simply impossible
• It is said that Ocelote is clearly right. The “poaching” would never stop.

Ocelote has pretty hot views on LoL, as you can see over and over again:

LoL: G2 boss calls other teams “stingy” and their fans “fucking lunatics”