A misinteraction by a Killjoy tower turned the lower bracket match between XSET and FPX neatly on its head. We explain what happened.
At a VALORANT Champions 2022 playoff match in Istanbul, a not-so-unknown bug caused a lot of confusion in a match between XSET and FunPlus Phoenix. We explain to you what happened and why fans are now protesting against Riot’s decision.
The situation
During the match between XSET and FPX, a crucial 2-on-3 situation occurred with the score at 11 to 12. The attacking team XSET was outnumbered and defended the already placed spike. When the defenders (FPX) showed themselves, the gun turret of the agent Killjoy reacted and attacked them.
But due to a bug, the turret ended up shooting once in a completely different direction than the one FPX players were coming from. As a result, XSET changed their defensive strategy and one player looked in the “wrong” direction.
FPX managed to eliminate all members of XSET, won the round and thus the game.
Riot Games decides to replay the round
After a brief period of deliberation, the World Championship organisers have decided to replay the round due to the error.
Competitive Update Regarding the FPX and XSET match: pic.twitter.com/c0QayBBl0v
– VALORANT Champions Tour 🇹🇷 (@ValorantEsports) September 13, 2022
For clarity: on-site media are producing people at the event. One came up to press and said the round was going to be replayed.
We heard another one yell out that the final round was going to be replayed.
Another relayed that they were looking into it after https://t.co/bDVoXY2ki8
– Declan McLaughlin @ 🇹🇷 Valorant Champs (@DickyMclaughlin) September 13, 2022
Despite replay in favour of XSET, FPX still managed to win the match in the end.
Spectators unhappy with decision
This decision, however, was met with plenty of headwinds, not least from match-winner FPX, for whom it was the last round before their victory.
Seems like normal turret re-action, ANGE1 went into the angle was spotted by the turret and in the microtiming manged to hide so it reset to the default position. Not sure why in the world you would replay this round, just unfortunate circumstance. VALORANTChampions pic.twitter.com/6IdnHHgJrM
– Sayf (@DSajoof) September 13, 2022
It is known that Killjoy’s turret resets to its original position as soon as it sees no more enemies. This apparently also happened in this situation.
Many Twitter and Reddit users therefore see it as a wrong decision that the round was repeated.
Competitive Update Regarding the FPX and XSET match: pic.twitter.com/c0QayBBl0v
– VALORANT Champions Tour 🇹🇷 (@ValorantEsports) September 13, 2022
XSET now victim of allegations
Although XSET says it did not complain about the bug and allegedly had nothing to do with the decision regarding the replay, there is a fierce online rant against the team.
In a post-match press conference, the players made the following comments:
The players and the team’s coach stress that they would be similarly frustrated in the same situation, but affirm that they had no influence on the decision made by Riot.
Nonetheless, XSET received many spiteful comments following the match and press conference.
Taunts from FunPlus Phoenix are also involved and do not necessarily make the situation towards XSET relax.
Nice deal huh? 😉VALORANTChampions pic.twitter.com/3jhcBm72ob
– FPX (@FPX_Esports) September 14, 2022
How this situation will affect future games and bugs during tournaments remains to be seen. In any case, there is still a lot of discussion about Riot’s decision at the moment.
