General

Tournament Rules section 701 — 63 rules. From Riot's Tournament Rules for sanctioned events, last updated October 9, 2026.

701.1.: Philosophy
701.1.a.: Errors are assumed to be committed unintentionally. If the judge believes it was intentional, it is cheating. See 704.8 for more information about cheating.
701.1.a.1.: Players attempting to abuse error remedies to receive advantages are cheating.
701.1.b.: Judges are neutral arbiters and enforcers of policy and rules.
701.1.c.: Judges should not stop errors from occurring. Instead they deal with errors that have occurred.
701.1.d.: Judges should not intervene in games unless:
701.1.d.1.: They believe a violation has occurred.
701.1.d.2.: A player requested assistance.
701.1.d.3.: They observe a situation related to Unsporting Conduct.
701.1.e.: Judges should model fair play, sporting conduct, and diplomatic behavior.
701.1.f.: Judges should not account for a player’s history or skill when determining whether errors occurred.
701.1.g.: Judges may take into account a player’s history or skill when investigating.
701.1.h.: Penalties are designed to educate players on mistakes and encourage them not to make them in the future.
701.1.i.: Penalties are also designed to deter other players from similar errors.
701.1.j.: Penalties are issued and tracked to help judges understand intent over patterns of behavior.
701.1.k.: Head judges and head judges ONLY may issue penalties outside of these guidelines. They have discretion to apply harsher penalties or investigate cheating if needed. See 704.8 for more information about cheating.
701.1.l.: Judges are human and they make mistakes.
701.1.m.: If a judge recognizes their own mistakes, they should acknowledge them and correct them if possible.
701.1.n.: If a competition official makes a mistake and it results in a penalty applied to a player, the head judge can downgrade the penalty.
701.1.o.: If a player acts on information given in error by a competition official, the head judge can rewind the game to account for it, even if there were no other errors.
701.2.: Definitions of Penalties
701.2.a.: Warning: An indication that an error occurred that provides a record of the error.
701.2.a.1.: Time extensions should be granted if the total time to rule and correct is more than 1 minute.
701.2.b.: Game Loss: A game loss causes the erroring player and any of their teammates to concede the game. If this does not result in a winner, remaining players continue the game.
701.2.b.1.: Game losses are applied immediately if the game is ongoing, or to the player’s next game in the competition if it is not.
701.2.b.2.: If a player would receive multiple game losses at the same time, they only receive one.
701.2.b.3.: If all players in a match receive a game loss simultaneously, the current game ends in a draw. All game losses are recorded but do not affect the match score.
701.2.c.: Match Loss: A severe penalty that’s issued when the entire match has been compromised by the error.
701.2.c.1.: Match losses are applied to the current match, or to the player’s next match in the competition if their previous match has ended.
701.2.d.: Disqualification: A penalty issued for errors that damage the integrity of the competition or for severe misconduct.
701.2.d.1.: Disqualification causes that player to lose the current match and be dropped from the competition.
701.2.d.2.: If a player has already physically received prizes from the competition, they keep them, but they will not receive any other prizes after disqualification, even if their placement in the event would otherwise entitle them to prizes.
701.2.d.3.: When a player is disqualified, they are removed from the competition and from standings.
701.2.d.4.: Any attendee of a competition can be issued a disqualification, not just players. Being barred from the tournament venue may apply to disqualification at the head judge’s discretion.
701.2.d.5.: This penalty can be issued by the head judge even without conclusive proof if the head judge determines the integrity of the competition has been compromised.
701.3.: Applying Penalties
701.3.a.: Penalties of Game Loss of higher (b-d) should be reported to the head judge.
701.3.b.: Judges should explain the error, the procedure to fix it, and the penalties for involved players.
701.3.c.: Some errors include remedies beyond the scope of the base penalty, to protect competition officials from accusations of bias.
701.3.d.: If a single error leads to multiple related penalties, judges should issue only the one with the most severe penalty.
701.4.: Shuffling
701.4.a.: Some remedies require shuffling the randomized portion of the deck.
701.4.b.: Many cards recycle cards to the bottom of a deck. The judge should do what they can using information available from the game state and from the players to determine which portion of the deck is knowable by one or more players, and separate those before shuffling that deck.
701.4.b.1.: If no randomized portion of the deck exists and it is possible, judges may complete remedies without shuffling. 701.4.b2. If judges can’t confidently determine the full randomized portion of a deck, they may shuffle as much of the deck as needed to perform a remedy.
701.4.c.: Once the deck has been shuffled, any cards set aside in this way should be returned to their proper locations in the deck.
701.4.d.: Shuffles performed by a judge in this way are not considered shuffles in game terms.
701.5.: Rewinding
701.5.a.: Some remedies allow rewinding the game state in extreme circumstances, where leaving the game in its current state is substantially worse than rewinding.
701.5.b.: Some rewinds are simple; this means rewinding only the last action completed or one currently in progress.
701.5.b.1.: Any judge may perform a simple rewind of the most recent action of a game.