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Recently, Misfits and Fnatic collided in a win-or-go-home situation to keep their dreams of making it to the League of Legends Worlds tournament alive.
While Fnatic came out on top in a 5 game series, some shifty aspects of their gameplay have caused many to believe that they borderline cheated to gain an edge against their opponents.
While nothing has been confirmed yet and LEC officials haven't made any announcement regarding the questionable play in Game 4, some disgruntled fans suspect that Fnatic tried to pull something when things didn't go their way.
Twitter hosts several reactions from skeptical LEC fans regarding Fnatic's game pauses in Game 4
As both teams started Game 4, Fnatic led the series 2-1 and looked set to wrap up the day and advance to the next round.
However, Misfits started to snowball around the 20 minute mark, and Fnatic called for a game pause twice in a short time span.
The first pause was called after a suspected bug that caused Fnatic's Bwipo on Viego to not teleport in Ryze's ultimate ability, resulting in a kill for Misfits that caught the eyes of the Fnatic sideline.
The pause came almost instantly after, essentially allowing Fnatic to regroup and reset for the rest of the game.
Now, while Misfits did the same, their 7k gold lead started to slip away, leading many to think the 2 concepts are correlated. After some speculation, many fans went back, reviewed the pause situation and calmed down after they realized it was justified.
A second pause several minutes later caused a bit of uprising, though.
Fnatic called for another break to analyze a bug issue in the middle of a team fight, completely changing the dynamic of the fight by allowing players to restrategize.
Pauses in an LEC game are always in place for when unsuspecting issues arise in a match. On the other hand, fans became rather disgruntled and suspicious of the same behavior happening twice by the Fnatic side.
Misfits gradually fell to nearly even with Fnatic as a result of the pauses, slashing their momentum in half and acting as the main spark behind the community's frustration.
Some fans even called out Fnatic's early games in the Summer Split, when they went on to win a game after a pause that occurred in the middle of a fight.
Since this kind of thing has happened before, fans are likely more upset with it this time around, vehemently calling out Fnatic's track history of using pauses at questionable times.
The rules state that pauses are there for a clear reason, and that is to ensure the game runs as smoothly as possible. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to prevent a loophole from popping up here and there.
Some fans are also questioning the general rules and stating that they are more like guidelines than concrete boundaries.
Fnatic went on to win the series, leaving many to believe they robbed Misfits of a game. Misfits managed to win Game 4, however, so the other side of the coin is presenting its own argument by stating the pauses didn't help and therefore don't matter.
The LEC community appears to be torn at the scenario surrounding Game 4, but Fnatic advances nonetheless.
It'll be interesting to see if Fnatic continues the same sort of sideline behavior in the next round against G2 and if fans will have a biased point of view of any pause moving forward.
Note: The article reflects the views of the writer.
Related: League of Legends Worlds Championship 2021: All teams that have qualified so far for the event
