Popular League of Legends streamer TF Blade explained that he was removed from the League Partner Program (LPP) during today’s Twitch broadcast.
The streamer showed an email from the Riot Games Creator Support Team that discussed the ruling. After being placed on probation in March, likely for comments made while ranking up in Korean solo queue, Riot believes he failed to make the “necessary improvements” expected from League partners. TF Blade’s behavior will be reviewed again in June 2021 before potentially reinstating his LPP privileges.
“They can’t just come accusing me of being this guy that hasn’t improved his attitude and he’s toxic,” TF Blade said. “They haven’t even said why I got banned and they’re just accusing shit. I just don’t like to be accused.”
After following up with the Creator Support Team and asking for examples of toxic behavior, the Rioter explained that “there is no one game, no one moment on stream, no one message on social media” that they’ll point to because these incidents “go back over several months.”
The streamer will be stripped of several LPP privileges, such as access to League Unlocked, associated support on all Riot accounts, and the ability to co-stream LCS and Academy games.
TF Blade was banned by Riot Games Korea in March for verbal violence when he had a few choice words with his jungler that cost the streamer his laning phase. The streamer believed he was “genuinely targeted by Riot” and felt he didn’t say anything ban-worthy.
Former League pro IWillDominate was also recently removed from the partnership program because of “flagged statements” made on his social media account. The streamer’s behavior will similarly be reviewed in June 2021 before potentially being reinstated.
This isn’t the first time Riot has caused controversy by penalizing a prominent LoL community figure. In June, Riot put former Cloud9 mid laner Hai on probation in the League Partnership Program because of a chat restriction. The statement said he would be removed from the program if he didn’t behave in accordance with the guidelines within the next three months.
Before joining Dignitas, IWillDominate played for Complexity/Too Tricky. On December 4, 2012, all of his accounts were permanently banned from League of Legends due to toxic behavior and he was subsequently suspended from the League Championship Series for one year.
IWillDominate took it as an opportunity for self-improvement and has since reformed from his formerly toxic ways. His quest to redemption started with the creation of a new account with the name “IWDomínate” and the subsequent climb to a 2.2k Elo rating. Upon reaching that milestone, he started streaming.
Although IWillDominate had been banned from the LCS, he was still able to compete in other events unrelated to LCS.