'League of Legends' developer called out for implying he hopes a streamer dies

An employee -- sorry, ex-employee -- at League of Legends developer Riot Games learned this week that you can't imply you hope a streamer dies without consequences.

In a League of Legends chat room Sunday, Aaron "Sanjuro" Rutledge implied that if an infamous streamer died of a cocaine overdose or testicular cancer, he'd be "gucci," a.k.a. "good with it."

After his comments went public, Rutledge -- who was the lead experience designer with Riot -- owned up to the comments, apologized, deleted his Reddit and Twitter accounts, and no longer lists himself as working at Riot on LinkedIn.

The player Rutledge was talking about goes by Tyler1 online, a 22-year-old streamer who made his name by being incredibly toxic, even earning the title "the most toxic League of Legends player in North America."

After earning 15 bans on multiple accounts for berating teammates and intentionally allowing himself to be killed by enemies (a.k.a. feeding), he received a permanent ban from Riot, meaning any account he made would be immediately banned regardless of whether he broke any rules on that account.

The topic of Tyler1 came up on the official League of Legends Discord server on Sunday and Rutledge chimed in with several messages, all screengrabbed and uploaded on Imgur and Reddit. Most of Rutledge's comments are the ones censored by red boxes.

CARD ID: 272507, CARD TYPE: Imgur

In those messages, Rutledge said that Tyler1 "looks like a damn humunculous (sic)," then replied to other individuals who were discussing Tyler1's toxicity: "honestly.. its (sic) fine he'll die from a coke overdose or testicular cancer from all the steroids.. then we'll be gucci."

Reddit user SoulLeZzz posted Rutledge's comments on the League of Legends subreddit Sunday, which blew up immediately and prompted some responses from Rutledge, who first tried to defend himself and finally owned up to his comments with an apology.

Another employee at Riot Games chimed in Monday to apologize on behalf of Riot, noting that Riot will be taking internal action to address Rutledge's comments.

Since then, Rutledge's social media accounts associated with Riot have been deleted and his LinkedIn now notes that his time with Riot Games ended this month.

Tyler1 commented on the situation Monday on Twitter, adding that he has changed as a person (accentuated by the inclusion of "Most REFORMED Player NA" in his Twitter bio) and he has no hard feelings toward Rutledge.

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In a live stream on Monday, Tyler1 added that he does not do drugs or take steroids and does not have cancer.

Even if Tyler1 is still a toxic player, Rutledge's comments were out of line, regardless of where he said them and what context they were in.

We've reached out to Riot to confirm whether or not Rutledge was let go, and will update this story should we hear back.