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Official response regarding WCS Round of 16 ruling
 

Hi all.

I feel like this blog is necessary for a few reasons. The most important reason being I want people to be able to be at peace regarding what transpired during yesterday's WCS broadcast by knowing the full story and to apologise for any negative experience anybody had as a result.

For anybody who missed yesterday's WCS Season 2 Oceania/SEA Round of 16 - overall it was very successful in my eyes. Viewership was high throughout the day. Plenty of close games and I thought the production value was in the right direction. We also saw two new players who have previously not made it into Challenger in the last two years make it in being Blysk and NXZ. I really look forward to seeing their play on Saturday.

Before I discuss about the series in question here between Frustration and Law I want to let you all know that while I understand the impact of the mistake made, messages like below are totally unacceptable and are extremely immature. I'm a human being, I make mistakes. To be abused by multiple people in this manner is disgraceful. As someone who loves StarCraft and this community and have tried my hardest for multiple years to continue to provide quality content be it through wT Weeklies, ACL events or WCS campaigns for the community; seeing these comments makes me feel sick to a point I honestly have to question why I do it. While I can and will shrug this off I hope nobody ever has to go through what I did yesterday.



The facts
• The incident involved Frustration and Law in their Loser Bracket Round 5 series
• Both players were told by me their lower bracket series was to be played as an extended bo5 series
• Law was to start the series up 2-0 against Frustration due to their previous series in the winners bracket
• The series was played out with Frustration taking the first game and Law winning the second game making him the overall winner 3-1
• At the conclusion of the series it was raised by Frustration that extended series should not have been played - this statement was echoed by multiple parties
• It should also be noted for context that if extended series was to be used a previous series between Azure and Law in Loser Bracket Round 4 should have been an extended series but it was not
• At this stage the tournament was placed on hold until this concern was resolved
• Upon review of the situation and the rules there was found to be no part which stated extended series was to be played
• Frustration proposed to continue the set as if it was a regular best of 3 resuming at 1-1 going into game 3
• Law was told by me he could take the win or we could revert back to a regular best of 3
• Law responded something along the lines of 'if it's within the rules I will take the win. If it is not I will play on'
• I then confirmed with both players that they were happy to resume the series at 1-1 to which they both agreed
• Game 3 was played with Frustration winning meaning he moved on and Law was eliminated

My comments
People are quick to make interpretations and assumptions up of any situation even if they have no idea on the processes which occurred to get to the decision. The simple thing to say is I made a mistake and I apologise profusely for it. As the series between Frustration and Law was about to start the question was raised by an admin regarding if the series should be an extended series or not and instead of stepping back and making sure that was in fact something which was meant to happen, I automatically went with it. My mistake was both not taking the time to make sure I was making the right decision mixed with confusing previous ACL events where extended series have been used (for Call of Duty) for WCS events and thus thinking in my head "oh of course".

When the series concluded and the question was raised the first thing I did was pause the tournament. It just so happened this was the only series to play at the time but if there were other series playing I would have stopped all new series from commencing until this was resolved. Upon reviewing the rules and realising it was an administration mistake to have played extended rules, I tried to have a fair and civil conversation with both parties affected to come to an agreed outcome. My mentality in this situation was consistency was extremely important and having recognised we did not force the series between Law and Azure to be extended then this series between Frustration and Law had no real grounds to be extended.

At this point it became a question for Law. As the series had been played I offered him to take the win. Given the series had been played out he won the series under the conditions presented to both players. He appeared to wish to play by the rules so at that moment it became a question of whether the now best of 3 series would resume 1-1 or be a dead rubber and be reset to 0-0. After discussing with multiple people who shall remain anonymous because I respect their privacy, it was decided as a tournament body that while we could replay the entire series, if both players agreed to resume at 1-1 there would be no reason not to do so. So I raised this with Law asking what he wanted to do to which he agreed to resume the series at 1-1. I made sure both Frustration and Law understood what they were agreeing to and they both accepted. The rest is history.

While I will never deny a mistake was made and there were a magnitude of different ways I could have handled the situation (forcing extended from there on, replaying the entire series, forcing Law and Azure to replay their series etc.) I feel like the actions I took in light of what happened were the fairest to all parties involved and allowed both Frustration and Law to raise any concerns and ultimately decide civilly on an outcome.

I take something like this very seriously and will make sure this doesn't happen again. I once again apologise for the impact it had on anybody and also want to let Law know that his actions during that series were very noble and respectable and I have nothing but the up most respect for how he approached the situation. I welcome people to share their thoughts and opinions but ask you all respect the decisions made and ultimately put this behind us so that this weekend's WCS Challenger series comes from a place of love for StarCraft and our region and what we can achieve - not weighed down by what transpired during the Round of 16.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I am sorry.