Bizarre Pacifist Ascension strategy leads to player bans that were later reversed

It seems a team of five has found an unbeatable strategy for the Ascension rotating game mode.

According to Reddit user TheCheeZZ, who made a post on the League of Legends subreddit on Tuesday, he and some friends were matched into an Ascension game with a team that chose all tank champions. The tank team refused to do any damage or attack and simply died over and over again. Every time they could back, they bought tank items. Eventually, the team that wasn’t being attacked, TheCheeZZ’s team, couldn’t do damage to the tanks anymore, because in Ascension, you can only buy items when you die.

TheCheeZZ said his team surrendered right around the 60 minute mark after it became clear that they could neither take objectives — thanks to the tank team’s collection of Sunfire Capes which interrupt the objective taking mechanic in Ascension — or fight, meaning that the tank team won, despite doing almost nothing.

The thread was updated shortly after to reflect the fact that, in a moment of frustration TheCheeZZ’s team reported the tank team, and the team ended up receiving a 14 day ban. The protests came shortly after, with other Reddit users upset that the team was banned for a strategy that isn’t explicitly outlawed. Riot responded to the player’s concerns.

According to a tweet from Rioter Ben Forbes, the bans were reversed and the players that were banned were contacted.

The official League of Legends Reddit account then posted a follow-up thread stating that they know that the pacifist strategy is horrifically unhealthy, and they’ll be looking for a way to fix that. The players were unbanned because despite it being a completely unfun way to play, they were playing with the intent to win.

We can probably expect some changes to Ascension the next time it’s on the Public Beta Environment.