Story time. Quite long, with a lot of superfluous dramatization. TL;DR at bottom.
Yesterday, I was playing with 79 ping, which is much lower than anything I have recorded even on PBE during low traffic times. This is when I first suspected something was fucked, because there's no way my ping suddenly drops like that without a huge announcement with Tryndamere coming down the the heavens to say that they have installed tubes directly from Rito HQ to everyone's house.
Fast-forward twenty minutes into the game. I disconnected with all the telltale signs: can't move, ping displaying at 500, attempting to reconnect. My skype call fluttered out for about 3 seconds, but that always happens when League breaks, even if it's not my internet that caused it, as if the LoL client and Skype have a suicide pact but Skype never fully commits. Skype came back right away but LoL did not. I watched my character sit in base for a minute and a half before deciding that I was never coming back this way, and I closed out of the game and ended all tasks in the task manager related to LoL.
When I brought up the launcher, instead of pretty pictures, there was a black box. I could still hit "Launch" and all of the other functional buttons, so while I was dubious about the success of my venture, I clicked "Launch". It all functioned perfectly until I couldn't login. I didn't receive a response from the server. I tried numerous times with this method getting the same results every time. All the evidence seemed to point towards the fact that somebody must have cut my tube to Rito HQ that was installed earlier that day. Since it was probably a server issue, I tried to figure out what would happen if I logged onto EUW instead.
When I switched to EUW, the launcher got its pretty pictures back, so apparently I could connect to the mysterious server on the other side of the pond. Instead of clicking "Launch", I tried to switch back to the server of salt. The spooky black box turned white! I kept going with this plan but hit the same roadblock on the login screen. I decided to consult EUW once again for help. I let the launcher fully patch, hit "Launch", and attempted to login to my EUW account. I failed. I received the same error message as I did on the NA server. Both servers were giving me the cold shoulder.
I could not abandon my friends. Skype was active the whole time, and from the sound of it they were holding their own in the 4v5. Since both servers tried to fuck me without lube, I figured it must be my internet that was the problem. But, a reset of my internet would put my friends in the dark about my situations, hidden from the warmth of R'hllor. I gave NA one last try. I switched the launcher back over and was greeted with pretty pictures! The blank boxes were gone and I was hopeful. I launched. I logged in. I connected to the game in ten seconds. I was able to move from the fountain with a comforting 104 ping. And best of all: despite my twenty minute absence, I won the game. There was much rejoicing.
Why the fuck did that work?
TL;DR Suspiciously low ping. Disconnect from game. Wait a bit for auto-reconnect before leaving. Close out all LoL tasks. Attempt to relog. Fail due to no response from server. Switched over to EUW and failed to login there. Switched back to NA and logged in perfectly with everything business as usual. Why the fuck did that work?