Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Mlxg is suing the agent company of Royal Never Give Up, not RNG.
Former professional League of Legends star Liu “Mlxg” Shi-Yu announced on social media platform Weibo on Friday that he is suing esports organization Royal Never Give Up’s agent company Shangrao Tiantong Culture Communication Co., Ltd for failure to pay out streaming salary as well as a down payment for Mlxg’s streaming contract.
Mlxg spent four of his six-year League of Legend career on RNG as their starting jungler. During his time with the team, RNG captured three League of Legends Pro League titles. In his final full season with RNG, Mlxg helped his team win the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational. After losing in the quarter-finals at Worlds 2018, Mlxg officially retired in July 2019. Since then he has stuck around with the organization as a streamer.
Mlxg has been streaming under RNG since his retirement. He claimed in his Weibo post that he has not been paid in nearly two years. In the same post, he said he has lost all trust and patience with the organization. Mlxg stated he filed a lawsuit back in September of this year. The lawsuit is against RNG’s agent company Shangrao Tiantong Culture Communication Co., Ltd. An English translation of his post was translated and shared by Reddit user u/9de03ac5d92c272b7f75.
The lawsuit comes off the back of another RNG-centered lawsuit. Just last year, RNG was sued by the streaming platform, DouYu over a breach of contract with RNG streamers. The suit favored DouYu. Mlxg found himself in that lawsuit too, as he was one of the two streamers whose retirement RNG failed to notify DouYu of.
RNG’s former parent company, Leyou Network Technology was on the hook for $4.5 million total in damages. Penalties for non-written notice of the retirements accounted for $3 million of the damages.
Neither RNG nor their parent company has made any official comment on the matter at the time of this article’s publishing.
