Riot Games have deactivated the Hexflash rune across all competitive League of Legends scene following a LPL game on June 8. The leagues announced the decision separately, the LEC announcing it ahead of the season's start on June 11.
Flashy #LEC Update:
— Maximilian Peter Schmidt (@RiotMAXtheX) June 9, 2021
Due to yesterday’s bug in the #LPL which caused both Hexflash and the regular Flash to be unusable we will be disabling the use of the Hexflash rune for @LEC Week 1.
Hexflash's disabling has massive repercussions on the support champion pool and will cause significant issues ahead of the LEC's first week of action. Indeed, several engage supports use the rune to great effect (e.g.: Leona, Alistar, Sett, and to lesser extents Nautilus and Thresh). With some of them out of the picture temporarily, Enchanter supports (such as Seraphine and Nami) may see playing time, provided teams adjust their practice in such a short notice.
The first instance of the bug in competitive play occurred in Game 3 of the matchup between Edward Gaming and Bilibili Gaming. With EDG's bot lane towerdiving BLG's support (Biubiu, on Sett), Biubiu's cast his Ultimate on EDG Meiko's Leona as the latter was channeling Hexflash.
With Hexflash suddenly interrupted and on cooldown, and as Flash's cooldown was restored, the game did not allow Meiko to use either of them, leading to a remake. EDG eventually won the game, but the bug needed to be addressed across the world.
YouTuber Vandiril, who previously exposed the bug, had his own take on the issue:
Although Riot Games could have disabled Sett, LEC commissioner Maximillian "MAXTheX" Peter Schmidt highlighted, but the problem extended to Hexflash overall, not solely to Sett.
For clarity:
— Maximilian Peter Schmidt (@RiotMAXtheX) June 9, 2021
While the most reliable way to reproduce the bug involves Sett, it is unfortunately not the only way it occurs.
If this bug was exclusively tied to Sett, we would have almost certainly disabled Sett instead of Hexflash.
Image source: Riot Games
