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New League of Legends update risks losing access to pro match data

New League of Legends update risks losing access to pro match data

An upcoming change to the League of Legends client would shut the door for third parties to acquire valuable data and share the data with the public.

New League of Legends update risks losing access to pro match data

The League of Legends esports community is at risk of losing access to valuable data regarding professional matches. Information from any competition might become unavailable to third parties seeking information.

It all revolves around the Access Control System (ACS), the backend of match histories. Up until now, third-party sites such as Leaguepedia, GamesOfLegends, and Oracle's Elixer, could use the backend to acquire detailed information about any League of Legends esports game. For example: "How many creeps did G2 kill versus Fnatic?" is a question that could be answered by data sites through the ACS.

However, as pointed out by Schalke 04 Esports analyst Rodrigo "rLT" Oliveira, this backend will disappear soon.

Though Riot Games did just introduce more esports features to their character-based shooter VALORANT, allowing for more data to be gathered, there are no signs yet that League of Legends will receive a similar update to preserve the valuable match information.

It should be noted that the disappearance of the ACS would not impact sites such as OP.GG, as those track individual games rather than tournament games.

Image courtesy of Riot Games.

Tom Matthiesen

Esports journalist since 2015. Amateur pizza connoisseur, semi-professional binge watcher. Proud Veigar main in League of Legends.