[breadfan]

MLG today announced their decision to disqualify League of Legends teams Curse NA and Team Dignitas, after it became apparent the teams had agreed to split the 1st and 2nd place prize pools. The final Bo5 started out as an All Random All Mid game with the following 4 games played normally.

This has ignited discussion about fair play in eSports, and potentially threatens the legitimacy of all eSport initiatives.

There is no 1st or 2nd place awarded - 3rd and 4th place will remain in their respective places.

Read the statement on the MLG website.

[AuXCoolpuff]

How crazy is it? It's stupid they even did it, people are trying to make eSports legit and these stupid people try and rig it. I feel bad for MLG to be honest.

[Mox]

Its kinda sucky...We see such great eSports events like WCS Oceania/Australia, and IEM and then eSports takes a step back with things like this. Really disappointing.

[ETL.ViTaL]

seems like MLG made the right decision in disqualifying them but not handing the prize to the 3rd and 4th teams is wrong imo as if this did happen i think the top two teams would for sure think twice before doing it again.

Edit: Yeah i mean awarding the teams who came 3rd and 4th the first and second prizes instead of keeping the money for themselves

Quick Comments

	Maynarde:	They did hand the prize to 3rd and 4th I thought
	TheGentleman:	They did hand out the 3rd and 4th prize. Those teams had did the right thing.
	PiG:	he means not giving 3rd-4th 1st and 2nd place prizes right?
	EveMassacrisM:	1st and 2nd place prize money was split to 3rd-6th AFAIK

[Dox]

Originally Posted by ViTaL

seems like MLG made the right decision in disqualifying them but not handing the prize to the 3rd and 4th teams is wrong imo as if this did happen i think the top two teams would for sure think twice before doing it again.

Edit: Yeah i mean awarding the teams who came 3rd and 4th the first and second prizes instead of keeping the money for themselves

3rd and 4th received 1st prize and 2nd prize.
5th and 6th received 3rd prize and 4th prize.

FWIW I don't think this is worth front page news on SC2SEA though, just a valid topic for general discussion.

Quick Comments

Dingobloo:

The post was ready before your comments in the previous post, most thought it was big enough of a story to warrant it.

[ToRSpartaz]

Wow that is really saddening to have such events such these MLG's used for exploiting as such. Its situations like these that really give eSports a bad impression Dx

[Another]

as if competitive LoL wasnt enough of a joke already

[Satu]

MLG made the right move here, for sure. Although its sad to see something like this happen in esports, I hope that the teams can learn from this.

[Cordance]

If this happened for any other sport they would likely be banned for life from the comp. However I have heard times in competitive gambling/chance based games where people split the winnings regardless of winner. Then they play with different tactics to speed the play.
The question is, is lol being played as a sport vs a game? A big unanswered question is what would have happened if they had played a "good game"?

Regardless of if we call Esports a game or a sport (yes I know the name is trying to make it a sport) how do judge's judge serious play vs some kind of cheesy tactic. Think back to Naniwa and his worker rush vs what he could have done lame 4 gate or DT rush. Another situations of "conserving strength" IDRAs GG vs huk's hallucinate. We know what happened in Korea when in a minor comp a player forfeited when they should not have.

We can continue on to other interesting "judging" questions. Look out our own SEA comps where people forfeit for different reasons mid comp. To tired, had other plans are reasons sighted for this, a disconnection forfeit is a little different but a similar situation. What is going to happen when a player wants to become the second seed to a bracket because they know who they will face and would rather play them. All these things are "questionable" judging calls which we need "rules" to play to defend against.

Seems like its time for better "standard" rules to be written for such competitions to embody the "spirit" of competition. Then again the questions come who should be making these rules as clearly we shouldn't have them unwritten. When we start building these rules we have to keep in mind the difference between a sport and a game and where we want to end up.

Although most of the community instantly feels what they did was wrong. Technically I dont believe they went against MLGs stated rule “competitors may not intentionally Forfeit a Game or conspire to manipulate Rankings or Brackets.” what they did was add additional risk to their tactic to play the game. They split winnings regardless of winner they didnt conspire to make one or the other a winner. Just to make the game more of a gamble compare this to high chance starcraft cheese.

[x5.NotoriouS]

MLG made the right move here for sure. Play to win, it's what the fans want and ensures the integrity of the tournament.

gg LoL..

[RicocheT]

Only thing they didn't do better was give 1st and 2nd to 3rd/4th and lifetime ban the members of the 2 teams.

[JiNxXx]

Originally Posted by FaDeUndoNe

Only thing they didn't do better was give 1st and 2nd to 3rd/4th and lifetime ban the members of the 2 teams.

mm I agree. they need to make an example that this kind of behavior will never be tolerated.

what is to stop others from doing the same thing? "oh no, we lost our prize money, we'll just try again next time, maybe we will get away with it".

-_-

[inFeZa]

Wow.... What a joke.

[nirvAnA]

I'm glad MLG have taken such a tough stance. It sends a clear message that this is unacceptable behaviour and sets a good precedence so hopefully we will never see anything like this again.

They should have stopped the match halfway tho or talked to the teams before hand so it would not come to this. I wonder how the LoL community reacted.

[AxSGRiM]

I feel like lifetime bans are unnecessary but perhaps a 2 season ban would suffice. MLG definitely made the correct move with removing their prize money.

[iM yang]

You Tube

You Tube

[iM tgun]

MLG's decision is stupid as ****. Everyone needs to stop making such short-sighted decisions based off such warped information.

Here's what we know 100% confirmed from multiple people:

ARAM 1st game was agreed upon by Curse + Dignitas
They were going to chop the money 50/50 as opposed to 20k/12k 1st/2nd This is not 100% confirmed, but generally agreed upon. I think curse is saying this is not the case.

That's what we know and has been confirmed. All of the games were played out after the ARAM as per standard (with both teams playing as standard as possible; nothing new shown as they wanted to hide strats for the upcoming regionals).

To put it into SC2 perspective, the first game is a huge joke and should definitely be punished. I have no qualms with that. However, the next four games are as simple as, in a ZvP, the zerg going 3-hatch roach/ling every game and the protoss cycling between four different 2-base allins that he's shown before.

Would you say that's match-fixing? Of course, you'd scold them for the first game (let's say, for arguments sake, they made it NR15..) -- however, the result wasn't fixed at all.

To put it into perspective: if you hadn't known that they were chopping the money, would the punishment still be the same? The results would have, in fact, benefited dignitas more if they won, due to their seedings at the regionals. They lost, 2-3, thus not effecting their seedings.

People need to understand that what they decide to do with their prize money is up to them. It isn't match fixing, collusion or anything of the sort.. that's what pisses me off. This is nothing to the level of the (CoCa?) fiasco -- at most, they should be docked a small percentage of their prize money, not have all of it removed. That, to me, is MLG being ******* ridiculous -- however, MLG being ridiculous isn't news to anyone. They're an awfully ran tournament.

ALSO -- The wording is wrong. "The final, deciding match was an ARAM" ? The first game was ARAM, dig took the 2nd game in a standard game and then curse provided a 3-0 swing to bring it to 3-2 their favour.

And some added perspective -- when myself and Iaguz played the ARENA $1k lan waaaaaaay back when, the prize pool was slated to be $1k 1st, $0 2nd. We agreed upon (between ourselves) $700 / $300 split. We then played our ******* asses off. I myself would do the same even if it was $500 / $500 and the pure feeling of winning. However, would you deem what we did match fixing? Collusion? Against the rules? That's essentially what happened here. The players went behind the admins backs to alter the prizes. They still went out, played damn well and put on some fun games.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	great post ^_^
	breadfan:	ty for the correction re: when they played the ARAM

[Unstable]

Originally Posted by tgun

MLG's decision is stupid as ****. Everyone needs to stop making such short-sighted decisions based off such warped information.

Here's what we know 100% confirmed from multiple people:

ARAM 1st game was agreed upon by Curse + Dignitas
They were going to chop the money 50/50 as opposed to 20k/12k 1st/2nd This is not 100% confirmed, but generally agreed upon. I think curse is saying this is not the case.

That's what we know and has been confirmed. All of the games were played out after the ARAM as per standard (with both teams playing as standard as possible; nothing new shown as they wanted to hide strats for the upcoming regionals).

To put it into SC2 perspective, the first game is a huge joke and should definitely be punished. I have no qualms with that. However, the next four games are as simple as, in a ZvP, the zerg going 3-hatch roach/ling every game and the protoss cycling between four different 2-base allins that he's shown before.

Would you say that's match-fixing? Of course, you'd scold them for the first game (let's say, for arguments sake, they made it NR15..) -- however, the result wasn't fixed at all.

To put it into perspective: if you hadn't known that they were chopping the money, would the punishment still be the same? The results would have, in fact, benefited dignitas more if they won, due to their seedings at the regionals. They lost, 2-3, thus not effecting their seedings.

People need to understand that what they decide to do with their prize money is up to them. It isn't match fixing, collusion or anything of the sort.. that's what pisses me off. This is nothing to the level of the (CoCa?) fiasco -- at most, they should be docked a small percentage of their prize money, not have all of it removed. That, to me, is MLG being ******* ridiculous -- however, MLG being ridiculous isn't news to anyone. They're an awfully ran tournament.

ALSO -- The wording is wrong. "The final, deciding match was an ARAM" ? The first game was ARAM, dig took the 2nd game in a standard game and then curse provided a 3-0 swing to bring it to 3-2 their favour.

And some added perspective -- when myself and Iaguz played the ARENA $1k lan waaaaaaay back when, the prize pool was slated to be $1k 1st, $0 2nd. We agreed upon (between ourselves) $700 / $300 split. We then played our ******* asses off. I myself would do the same even if it was $500 / $500 and the pure feeling of winning. However, would you deem what we did match fixing? Collusion? Against the rules? That's essentially what happened here. The players went behind the admins backs to alter the prizes. They still went out, played damn well and put on some fun games.

I believe at the moment, both curse and dignitas are fighting behind the scenes about the collusion, the ARAM game was stupid and both teams have apologised for that but curse have said anything else is BS, but if it is true that they didn't choose to split prize money etc, I'm sure Odee will bust a nut in public about it and demand MLG to show their proof.

I know there has been a few times within SC2 that some players have lost games on purpose to get a better bracket in the later rounds (badminton anyone?) so it depends where your priorities are. They still showed good games, apart from that 1 ARAM game which by nature is random so you cant matchfix, the other games were entertaining. I just don't understand the basis of the "collusion" because curse's seeds didn't matter, and when your going into S2 regional does 1.6k per player really make THAT big a difference to take a risk like that?

Quick Comments

Synizta:

This reminds me of a Stephano ZvT, where both tried to throw to avoid playing Sen next round.

[Heady]

It doesn't matter if the match wasn't fixed or if it isn't even true that they colluded to share the prize pool. Any collusion that seeks to make the game anything other than two teams playing at their absolute best with resolve to win delegitimises the game and robs the fans of what they came to see. It is as much a contrivance as a fixed outcome or scripted game.

[iM tgun]

Originally Posted by Acies

It doesn't matter if the match wasn't fixed or if it isn't even true that they colluded to share the prize pool. Any collusion that seeks to make the game anything other than two teams playing at their absolute best with resolve to win delegitimises the game and robs the fans of what they came to see. It is as much a contrivance as a fixed outcome or scripted game.

They weren't going to play their best regardless due to their regionals being next week. The point remains, they both played the series out very properly after the ARAM fiasco (if you watch the games, you'll see that dig was 2-0 up and crs completed a 3-2 turnaround -- crs saintvicious once chewed out elementz for not taking a practice scrim seriously. Do you think he'd throw games infront of tens of thousands of people?