Riot Games has discussed internally the idea of making its new Clash tournament system available for third-party use, and clamping down harder on smurfs in-game.
Letting players run their own Clash tournaments ‘an interesting thought’
Clash was announced earlier this month and acts as a new bi-weekly League of Legends tournament for players of all abilities. It’s a tournament platform housed within the in-game client.
After we published the news last week, Niall “Nolly” Hayward from National Student Esports, asked the following question in the Esports News UK Discord server: “Will Riot be making the Clash system/mechanics available for third-party use, like giving players the capability of running their own Clashes?”
We put the question to Riot, and Leanne Loombe, senior producer at Riot Games on the Clash team, responded.
“This is a really interesting thought and something we have discussed,” Leanne said. “We are going to continue to invest in Clash and will be improving and expanding on it through the year and into the future.
“You’ll be seeing some more exciting things coming soon.”
‘We take smurfing very seriously’
Esports News UK also asked Leanne Loombe from Riot Games about how Riot is clamping down on higher elo players logging into lower-tier accounts to easily beat the opposition.
She hinted that the new SMS verification system for Clash could be rolled out into ranked solo queue in the future.
“We are taking smurfing very seriously, we don’t expect to remove smurfing 100% but we want to shield players from it,” Leanne explained.
“Firstly we have the SMS [text message] system which means every player has to choose one account to connect their account to.
“We are also looking to change Smurf’s motivations, by providing more Victory Points and better rewards for players in higher tiers. Second, we want to make sure that players play at the correct tier for their skill level, each time a player enters Clash we will do checks to make sure they are playing at the correct Tier to shield the integrity of the tournament.
“Lastly, we will be reactive as well by closely examining teams that win brackets to find any smurfs. If we find smurfs we will remove their rewards and ban them from Clash.
“All of these systems will be specific to Clash and we will continue to look into whether these may be expanding into other areas of League.”
Clash rewards
Riot Games’ Leanne Loombe also outlined all the rewards for the new Clash game mode.
“For Clash we have created two new reward types which we are very excited about,” Leanne commented. “The first one is Banners. As players win matches in Clash they will accumulate Victory Points, at certain Victory point thresholds players will unlock banners. There will be 3 tiers of banners in each Tournament cup (2 weekends).
“Once players unlock a banner it will display on the players profile and also in all Summoner Rift games. As players enter the rift the banner will display in lane based on the position that each player is in. This is a really cool way for players to show off their accomplishments. Players have the ability to equip the banner they like the most.”
Leanne continued: “As well as Banners we have Trophies which are the ultimate reward. The Trophies are exclusively for winners of the bracket. Each player on the team will be awarded a trophy if they win the 4 team bracket, 8 team bracket and the final 16 team bracket.
“Trophies also appear on players profile and spawn in Summoner Rift games so you can show off that you’ve won a Clash Tournament.
“Lastly we have Clash capsules. Clash capsules contain loot including Clash team logos and Clash tickets. The Clash capsule upgrades as you continue to progress through the Tournament, players collect their capsule at the end of their tournament run.”
More news has been coming out around Clash over the past week, including a new Sudden Death feature to ensure games don’t last too long.
Esports News UK is putting together its own Clash team and will update you on our adventures over the coming months.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
