Even though he was one of the company’s founders, he did not always follow the rules and was punished for it. Marc Merrill’s main League of Legends account, known as Riot Tryndamere, was banned at the time.

Riot Games was founded by two entrepreneurs, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, although they are known colloquially as Ryze and Tryndamere. The thing is, Tryndamenre, at least, hasn’t always been an excellent example of how the League of Legends community should be. In 2012, he broke one of the game’s cardinal rules, which has always been in place, by sharing his account with another player. While the developer doesn’t always punish this behaviour, the rules say it’s reason enough to get a permanent ban.

Penalties for such behaviour are almost always applied exclusively to professional players to prevent them from abusing the site and are rarely this severe.

However, the founder of Riot Games made many mistakes. Not only did he share his account with another player, but he also posted the results of games played on his account on his social networks as if he were the main character. In addition, although this was actually a mitigating circumstance, the user with whom he shared his account was banned from League of Legends several times. He was a higher-level player than the company founder himself and had a very particular style of play.

The user in question, who used Tryndamere’s account, was known as Jaximus. He only used Jax and was basically the inventor of splitpush. As if the clues weren’t enough, there are also records of games where both the primary and secondary accounts of the Riot Games founder were on the same team. Of course, having two accounts is not a crime. But having both accounts in the same game clearly shows that you’ve broken the rules.

Tryndamere took to social media to talk about his good results

It was a strange situation, but it only had consequences four years later. An Esports Heaven article, which was saved thanks to the WayBack Machine, reveals how a journalist broke the story. This prompted the company to conduct its own investigation. It was clearly established that the Riot Games employee had indeed shared his account with the player known as Jaximus. However, it was ruled out that he had done so to increase his player rank artificially.

“There is no reason for Tryndamere to resort to Elo Boost because he can literally ask us to set any of his accounts to the ELO (now MMR) he wants, and we will unlock all the skins on them,” said the company’s player support team.

However, the pressure that came with the news release forced the developer’s management to react. Riot Tryndamere tweeted, “I was rightly accused of sharing my account in 2012. We don’t think that’s right at all, so I’m donating $10,000 (the amount of the fine) to City Year L.A.”. The dispute continued from there, as City Year LA is an organisation of which he is a member. Although it is a non-profit, many saw it as a donation to himself. Merrill’s defence was that he could put his hands on the fire for its integrity because it was an organisation he knew himself.

We gamers didn’t know that this punishment wasn’t the only sanction that one of the fathers of League of Legends had imposed on himself. In addition to the fine, which was the equivalent of the fines imposed on professional players, the Riot Games co-creator also had his main account banned. Perhaps this symbolic gesture was all the more meaningful given Marc Merrill’s spending power. It can’t be a good thing to be banned from the main account of a game you helped to create, which has become one of the most successful games in history.

It should be noted that Tryndamere can, of course, still play League of Legends.

Riot Games generally does not apply personal penalties to players, only to their game account. However, there have been known instances throughout history – for example, in the case of Tyler1 – where a physical person was blocked as much as possible.

Tryndamere previews new features in League of Legends

This is a story that the creator himself wanted to evoke, which proves that he is entirely over it. He also used the conversation with players to confirm the increased budget for League of Legends events. “We’re in the process of refreshing the events team and working to bring back the crazy fun of the old MOBA days,” the Riot Games founder told Reddit.

Source: Esports Heaven, Reddit