Aurelion Sol disabled for days two and three of the World Championship
By Xing Li
Riot’s production crew is working on a fix for Aurelion Sol’s frustrating star mechanic.
It happened again.
Day One’s premier matchup between Team SoloMid and Royal Never Give Up had just gotten underway. TSM mid laner Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg was playing Cassiopeia into RNG Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-hao’s Aurelion Sol. Things seemed to be fine in the lane phase until this happened:
Things seemed to be fine in the laning phase until this happened:
Here's the issue that caused the Aurelion Sol disable today, we're currently investigating further and working on reproducing. pic.twitter.com/mNqAPuX0dA
— Emil (@RiotEmil) September 30, 2016
Xiaohu roamed into the river, and as he left Bjergsen’s vision, it appeared his stars disappeared at different times. Then, as he re-appeared from the brush, the stars didn’t appear at all. Aurelion Sol is an in-meta champion because of his ability to control large zones with the stars. Not being able to see them at all is a tremendous disadvantage.
After further in-game testing (also shown in the video above), Riot was able to reproduce the bug, even with different skins. The decision was made to remake the game with Aurelion Sol disabled. The outcome of the remade game favored RNG, but may have downstream implications.
Today, Riot announced that Aurelion Sol would be banned for the next two days as they attempt to fix the bug:
Aurelion Sol will remain disabled for Days 2 and 3. We will provide another update on Aurelion Sol tomorrow.
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) September 30, 2016
The length of the delay does not bode well for the champion and the teams that planned to play him.
It’s happened before
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Aurelion Sol’s passive has proved tricky for Riot to code, due to how far the stars rotate from the champion. Notably, the champion was disabled in the 2016 NA LCS Summer Playoffs, where Bjergsen again reported seeing the stars in the wrong spot. Riot’s reaction at that time shed light into the complicated history of this mechanic.
Riot’s Brian “Penrif” Bossé wrote about the passive: “This is the first time a missile is defining its motion around a unit that does not share its visibility.” That is exactly what’s so difficult about this bug and why it’s vexed their coding team.
What happens next
First, it’s hard to fault TSM or Bjergsen for pointing this bug out and asking for the champion to be removed. It’s not their responsibility to make sure the champion works. Riot needs to make sure that known issues like the Aurelion Sol bug are resolved before major international tournaments.
Despite it not being TSM’s fault, some teams will undoubtedly be unhappy with the ban. Counter Logic Gaming, has already had some strong things to say about their frustration with this bug:
All fans of League of Legends PLEASE experiment with friends and try to repro this bug so we can resolve this. Email: zikzlol@gmail.com
— 100T Zikz (@Zikzlol) September 30, 2016
Disabling Aurelion Sol undoubtedly changes strategy for any team that relied on him, especially as a counter pick to Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia’s raw power is causing problems for a lot of teams, but Aurelion Sol’s ability to zone her out of lane and roam faster unlocks a lot of strategies. Expect to see high priority, or outright bans, on Cassiopeia in the next few days.
Riot will certainly need your help to resolve this issue.
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