Riot continues to crack down on 'toxic' League of Legends pro players

League of Legends developer Riot banned two professional players for behavior deemed "extremely toxic," including verbal abuse and game harassment, eSports coordinatior Scott "Riot Abhorsen" Parkin announced via the game's forums.

Alfonso Aguirre Rodriguez, also known as Mithy, and Erlend "Nukeduck" Holm from team Ninjas in Pyjamas are suspended from the League Championship Series and the Challenger Series through the end of 2014. According to Parkin, Rodriguez consistently violates LoL's rules for players; he's been reported in more than 30 percent of games he's played in with the most common complaints focusing on negative attitude, offensive language and verbal abuse.

"In recent months, Rodriguez has exhibited extremely toxic behavior in solo queue," Parkin wrote. "This behavior included, but was not limited to, in game harassment, verbal abuse and continual use of racial slurs."

In response to the ban, Rodriguez took to Twitter to admit that he "didn't have the best behavior, so the ban is deserved."

Since I'm banned for 6months I'll be looking to join teams as a coach and meanwhile work on my behaviour and try and come back to the scene

— Alfonso 'mithy' (@mithyxd) June 2, 2014

Holm's charges are similar, with reports averaging around 30 percent of the games he played. In 65 percent of cases, Holm was reported for offensive language, verbal abuse and negative attitude.

"Despite previous punishments for his toxicity, Holm's behavior has shown no improvement over the past months, even after his account became Chat Restricted," Parkin wrote.

On Twitter, Holm said that he received no proper warning for his behavior and has never been banned during his account's 14-month lifespan.

The player added that he'll take the ban as a learning experience and "try to come back stronger."

Rodriguez and Holm are yet another two players to join a growing list of punished players, including Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera, Ilyas "enVision" Hartsema, Damien "Linak" Lorthios and the entire team of Team Solo Mebdi.

For more on how Riot Games is encouraging sportsmanship in its MOBA, check out our coverage of lead designer Jeffery Lin's talk from GDC 2014.