No air conditioning, no internet, no doors.

That was the alleged reality for Tristan "Cake" Côté-Lalumière, the former AD carry for League of Legends OPL team Tainted Minds.

The 22-year-old Canadian appeared on theScore esports Podcast Monday to clear the air on TM controversy and his next moves as a pro player stuck in contract purgatory.

The apparent shortcomings of the TM team house are well documented already, but Cake wasn’t shy with further details of the situation in Australia. He detailed the allegedly unsanitary garbage situation, intermittent power outages, and yes, apparently no computers for the first few weeks.

The young Canadian ADC recently released a database of hundreds of apparent chat logs and email screenshots detailing the alleged issues with the house, TM management and Riot. It was the only course of action, he told theScore esports, that could move things forward.

My story with Tainted Minds and Riot OCE



Read: https://t.co/46GBIY4bO6 — cake (@CakeLoL_) March 15, 2017

“Pretty much the only way I can play next split is if I go public, and something happens,” he said.

But the problems don’t stop at Tainted Minds, Cake told theScore esports Podcast. Riot themselves have not only been slow to respond, but have acted in a “biased” way, according to the Canadian.

“The head of Riot OCE, which is Daniel Ringland, he’s a friend with John McRea, which is the main investor in Tainted Minds. So, every single decision he took was biased towards Tainted Minds,” he said.

“It’s been pretty clear to us since the start that like, both of them had no intentions of solving the issues or anything. So Riot pretty much hasn’t done anything, even when we basically asked for help, went to the studio to fix things, but [they] never did anything.”

It’s the situation with Riot OCE, Cake said, that’s especially concerning.

"It's understandable that the org was s**t, but what I don't understand is that Riot OCE has completely dropped the ball on this matter,” he said. “That’s what bothers me the most about it, because I understand orgs f***ing players over because that’s not the first time it’s happened, but Riot not stepping in and fixing the issues is the big matter right now.”

For the moment, Cake is stuck in player purgatory. He said although he’s officially terminated his contract with TM, they org doesn’t recognize the termination, and he’s still listed in Riot database under Tainted Minds.

“Riot specifically told all the teams not to contact us, because that would be considered as poaching,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to solve the issues with Riot for over three months. I was trying to solve everything privately with the help of a lawyer, but both sides — which is Riot OCE and Tainted Minds — didn’t actually want to solve the problem.”

Riot is currently investigating the situation.

The ideal resolution for Cake? “Tainted Minds gets banned from OPL, which means I’m released from the database and I can play next split.”

Colin McNeil is a supervising editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.