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even so its not hard to stay in a league on purpose...

Again though, this is smurfing, which is a completely different problem. The two aren't related.

That's a general problem for low level tournaments, not something specific to people who switch races. We keep an eye out for suspicious smurfiness from everyone! Obviously we can't catch all of them, but we surely try.

Edit: great minds think alike? lol

they are related though, it adds to the point that its very hard to prove.

Absolutely not.

How though? By what statistic do you say that someone who races switches is more likely to smurf? Without exception, people whom i know play more than one race are annoyed that they haven't gotten their off-race up to the same level of their main.

Unless you can produce evidence that states that the rate of smurfing amongst people with more than one race is higher than the rate amongst those with only one race, the two are independent variables and can't be linked.

I'd like to say it's not okay, but I think it's one of those situations where you let them play at least once.

We won't be certain about their mechanics, it might be like M/GM level, but when they off-race it does change things quite a lot. They're used to mechanics, sure, but in race changes you have to apply the ones you learned and that isn't an easy task. If we let them play once, then and only then I think we can dictate whether to allow it to go on or not.

So yeah, test this out and if the majority says this isn't a good idea then it isn't a good idea to let them play. I'm just pointing out my take on the situation, it's up to the community to decide what to do. I personally think it's fine, but I can't be rubbing my points into everyone's faces because that's just wrong.

Lets take it back to 140 (huehue xjieun)

Normally I wouldn't really post on something to do with me, but even though Spook and I are cool bros about this now and I'm totally fine with everything, I wanted to make a few points just to make sure that I personally am not called into question or in future get called out, given that this stemmed from a discussion we had in chat. I also want to put into context some of the situation that spawned the discussion just so that people understand my point of view as well. So here goes.

The situation that spawned this was actually to do with the fact that I have a T account Fairtydust.459 (which I have never hidden) which I started playing T on, specifically after I saw RuineD do quite well with mech. One thing many people don't know is that originally in WoL I actually tried to play mech exclusive T, but given that I was a Protoss (C+ iccup) player in SCBW, my mechanical expertise and just general skill with T was far below par - and especially at the time, mech was a bit more of a joke - especially considering Kulas Ravine... Blistering Sands... and of course the mighty Steppes of War, and the general tendency of WoL beta to be a simple 'LOL LETS MAKE ALL THE T1 UNITS AND JUST MASS THE SHIT UP AND THEN JUST 1A'. So I switched "back to" Protoss, and proceeded from there. I digress.

As mentioned - many moons ago, after seeing RuineD do some fantastic stuff with mech TvP, particularly against my good buddy mGGAlpha - I decided it was time to go back to that old thing again, and see if I could have a go at it, because I would like to main as T mech style. And to be honest, I'm still trying to do it in HOTS but I'm having a god damn hard time with TvT and TvZ. (halp?)

Hilariously, given that I was playing on SEA server, in my first placement match I faced up against Cynix - and while I did my best with only simple replay-watching of RuineD to guide me - I was obviously smashed apart, and was placed into Gold.

A particular point that was made regarding me playing T was that "While yes, you are a lower rank, you still have Diamond level mechanics". Evidently having average apm of 150 or whatever doesn't actually matter, if you have no clue on what and when to build things. But I proceeded with doing my best to work things out. TvP became ridiculous, and I tried my best to work it out - but to this day while I think that TvP mech isn't impossible - it needs you to play PERFECTLY to actually win, but that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I continued on, staying in gold for the while - probably up to about 100 games by now, essentially forsaking my Protoss account (duckvillelol 645) - so that I could try and play some Mech, which technically speaking suits my more "turtlemacro" style better. Anyone who watches my stream knows that even when playing Protoss I tend to be extremely passive apart from DT shizzle.

So after starting to get the hang of TvT which wasn't too bad, and TvZ with the "hellion banshee" plays, and just kind of "yolo"ing tvp, I decided to play in some of the SC2SEA tournies for the first time, (that's right: I never played in any as Protoss because you guys in GPD are heaps better than I am, at least that's how I feel) and decided to check up what I could play in. Lo and behold, the BSG was available on Saturday, and I wanted to play in it to see if I had the chops.

Knowing that people might get amped up about a "DIAMOND LEVEL PROTOSS IN MY BSG? WHAT DA FUQ YO DAT IMBA" (even though I was playing Terran...) I made sure to ask (fyi, multiple days before) whether I would be allowed to play, given that I didn't want to be "named and shamed" because I had no malicious intent to defraud the community, or... (lol) unjustly win the tournament. Suipr/asra said it was fine, and thus me playing T in some simple BSG began.

So, effectively a Diamond Protoss attempting to play some Gold/Plat level Mech only Terran (which everyone who regularly plays me knows, and has thus caused my multiple losses to DrGoose cause he's imba)

Some points I'd like to make:

• I have almost 250 games (I think in just 2 seasons) on my Terran account
• I have never actually won a tourney, which is the most hilarious part about all of this camaraderie
• It was clearly stated much earlier to admins (including Pandarine in the WW BSGP a few weeks back) that I was Diamond Protoss, but attempting to play as Terran unto which I was Gold (and Platinum eventually) and this was fine (given that I had a heavily active second account on SEA)
• I had effectively stopped laddering as Protoss in 1v1s - I think the ratio of games was about 10:1 terranrotoss
• I was more than willing to open up any and all replays for the community to see me failing hard as Terran
• I regularly stream with Terran, and as Darkphoenix pointed out in chat - I'm actually not that good, I may even be gold worthy not plat

Regarding a couple of points others have made:

UHF pointed out in chat: (paraphrasing cause it's not in this thread - if this is wrong UHF please correct dude) -

Quote:

"the admins have too much work to do if they wanted to check someones replays - especially if multiple people wanted to offrace in a tourney"

Erasmus:

Quote:

"I also don't think making more work for volunteer admins checking out whether people have legitimately played a number of games with a particular race at a particular skill level in order to be eligible is a nice thing to be doing."

That's fine, at no point did I intend (or even think of, which is my fault) that admins might be given grief because of the fact that 24 people might want to offrace. But when it comes down to it, the excellent admins we have around here like Asra and Suipr and Eddie etc etc - would probably be happy to say "you know what, there are 24 people wanting to offrace, bugger off I cbf" and that's that. If that was the case (and if that is the case in future, that multiple people try to offrace and it cases an issue) I'd be glad to hang up the Terran spurs in lower-level tournies. However, that leads to something my venerable opponent Nem said:

mGG Nemesis: "What if a player has race switched (e.g lost interest the original main race)? Was masters toss but no longer so? And to make it clear, has a separate account for that other race which is diamond or any other league but masters? And is actively laddering on it?"

This is a bit of an issue I have with the "policing" of something like this. When is a player "viable" to play a race they have switched to? I'm aware it doesn't happen often, especially in this tight-knit SEA player group that we have - but lets say right now; you make a ruling "You can't offrace as Gold Terran cause it's unfair you are Diamond Protoss" - when am I okay to play? How many games should I have to play to earn the right to play with fellow players? Because I played over 100 before I even tried to play in the tournies, as I knew it could have been an issue and I didn't want to step on any toes.

RuineD:

Quote:

"If the player is consistantly in a low league, how does that demonstrate a level similar to their main race?"

Asrathiel:

Quote:

"If their game understanding, or anything (mechanics, micro, whatever), is above that league, and is enough to get them promoted, then it will get them promoted. Obviously they need to have been laddering legitimately on that account for a decent amount of time to establish that, and I wouldn't be letting someone play who came and said 'hey I bought a second account to offrace with yesterday and got placed silver, can I play BSG?" Err, no."

This is a prime point too - like I mentioned, I'd been playing for quite a while before I even attempted to BSG. People in chat earlier were saying "But you're diamond Protoss, you'll have diamond mechanics as Terran". So what? I played over 100 games before I tried to BSG, and I was STILL Gold. Like I mentioned earlier in this huge rant (sorry guys but this has frustrated me and I have vodka) - having 150 apm or whatever means nothing if you have no clue what to do - when to put down that armory, when to start switching to BC/ghost in TvP mech). Someone said that "game sense matters" or something akin to that - that's fine, and true in some respects - but being aware of an immortal prism-drop coming in compared to having your finger on the blink key to stop a medivac drop is a very different feeling. Here's a replay of my "diamond level mechanics/game sense" floundering in the face of a TABJ immo drop: http://drop.sc/290426

Finally, Erasmus: I agree, in a perfect world I don't think special cases should be applicable, especially in this context of "getting a free ride" to play in a tourney, and I never intended the fact that I'm a low level youtube caster to get in the way of integrity of the admins/tourney - but like drgoose/asra said, sometimes it just happens. Take for example when Clutch first posted; everyone questioned the **** out of him. But if Dox or Nirv or someone said "clutch is going to do a SEA segment on NASL everyone do the macarena!" it'd be fine, and we'd all understand that. It just happens sometimes. And we'd do the Macarena.

To sum up: (semi TL;DR for you lazy people)

I totally, totally agree with Spook. Having someone that is M/GM play in a lower level tourney is extremely questionable, and as always, the admins call is the final call, and no player should ever dispute their decision. If they want to go to the trouble of checking replays/game history, that's their right, and if they decide a person is actually too good for the league, then they can bounce him/her. I just wanted to make my particular case known, that at no point had I ever "smurfed" at all, or tried to defraud the community - because due to inspiration from another SEA community member, I legitimately wanted to play mech T given it "seemed" feasible, given it had been my original race for SC2. However, I never won a tourney, and doubt I ever will because DrGoose is imba and my TvZ is horrible now. The real situation that came into question was a Diamond Protoss, playing on an extremely active second Terran account, wanting to try out his hand at competing with other BSG (and soon Plat) people. The whole time - willing to say "okay then! " if he wasn't allowed to play because people were worried about "diamond mechanics/game sense" being used in a BSG tourney.

PS: Sorry to Spook/anyone else I gave shit to in chat, I've been drinking a little, and being called a smurf and seemingly(I know in the end you weren't) having my skill/integrity called into question really irritated me, apologies my seabros. And yes Spartaz I know this blog wasn't aimed at me, but I just wanted to get my perspective out there otherwise I'll sit on this shit for ages.

PPS my god my spelling/grammar sucks, sorry about that. Again, the vodka. etc etc.

I lol'd at that We were more than happy to have you in BSGs ♥♥

The issue is a sticky one, and like I said earlier, I would always be looking at such requests on a case-by-case basis.

If was the administrator, no.

Too much work/guideline setting to build this special case scenario into tournaments.
Although it doesn't hurt to try to set them.

Edit: Misread lol

glad we worked that out haha

My opinion is if they are being ACTIVE on the 2nd acount, and the 2nd acount is purely on a different race, then hell yeah they should be allowed to play. Set a minimum game requirement if you need. You can play once u have over 100 wins on that acount as that race. BOOM. If they were good enough to get promoted after that many games. then they would have.

Problem is that guidelines like that are easily exploitable I'll just lose every second game while beating GM's in customs.

Just too hard to police, and sounds like very special case scenarios.

In my work I deal with special requests all the time. The thing is that in many cases the first person asking for the special permission or whatever is often legit or you can see why their case may be valid. Whether you like it or not, allowing something like this to go ahead does set a precedent and even if you have done it on a "case by case" basis the rationale for this specific case will still be clear and then should apply to the next person asking for the same treatment. Now if the special case involved a "one legged pensioner with 7 kids that has recently lost their job" you might think what are the chances of this coming up every day and say yeah, sounds fair enough. But, if the reason you are agreeing is a fairly common scenario, then you will be setting yourself and probably other people for a lot of extra work. In the grand scheme of things, I guess you need to weigh up if going to this extra effort is worth it - sometimes it is, other times not.

I also think you may be dealing with a sweet spot in terms of mechanics where maybe the differences in this scenario are less noticeable compared to a GM off racing down to diamond or a gold/ plat off racing down to bronze/ silver.