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Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 00:00
by Vinyanyérë
TL;DR

Butifle will advance to the finals. A new rule is being added to all future tournaments and will be enforced from the first tournament after The Warchiefs Classic. We would like to remind all players about the importance of competitive integrity and good-mannered play.

Decision made by: Vinyanenya (author), _H2O, Chrisie10101, JakeyBoyTH, Mr_Bramboy


Context

On 2017-July-04, the players Butifle (Googol on ESOC) and mongobillione (sebnan12 on ESOC) played a semifinals match of the 2017 Spring Second Chance Tournament. Over the course of the match, the players reached a score of 3-3, and played a seventh game to decide the winner of the series and who would ultimately advance to the finals of the tournament. During this game, mongobillione gained a nearly-insurmountable lead over his opponent, at the end of the game having a score of 192 to Butifle’s 103 and additionally having a military population lead of 44 to 20 and an economic population lead of 69 to 38. Despite this lead, mongobillione typed “gg congratz” and resigned.


Analysis

On review of game 7 in the semifinals series, there is no question that Butifle was in an effectively unwinnable position at the moment before the end of the game. We believe that both players were also aware that the game was in this state. Therefore, our conclusion is that mongobillione intentionally lost game 7 so that Butifle would advance to the finals.

This necessarily brings into question the legitimacy of the tournament. Among other things, a tournament serves two purposes: firstly, to be a measure of skill among a collection of players at a point in time, and secondly, to provide enjoyable content for spectators to view. All tournaments rely on the expectation that all players will play out their matches with the intention of winning; when this does not happen, both aforementioned purposes are undermined. As such, mongobillione’s actions do a disservice to his opponent, other tournament participants, the casters, the tournament organizers, and all viewers.

We do not believe that Butifle and mongobillione colluded before or during the series to arrange the winner of the match. I have spoken with Butifle since the incident, and he explained to me the reason that mongobillione decided to lose the series. Per his request, I have not shared this information with other tournament admins and will not share it here. However, I do not consider it to be sufficient rationale to justify losing the series intentionally as opposed to either forfeiting beforehand or making an honest effort to win.

There is currently no rule in tournaments prevent players from intentionally losing games or matches. This was an oversight on our part; stemming partially from the belief that no player had any reason to do so. The only rule that mongobillione is conceivably in breach of is Rule 1.2, which states:

“Every player must respect their opponent, casters and organizers. Misbehavior will result in a warning and can lead into disqualification. Racism and/or insults will not be tolerated.”

However, it is clear that the word “respect” in Rule 1.2 is intended to refer to cases of a player insulting their opponent, casters, or tournament admins, and not disrespecting them by delegitimizing the tournament. It is an unreasonable stretch of the rule’s intent to apply it here. We have thus decided that mongobillione was not in violation of tournament rules.


Decision

In deciding which player would advance to the finals, we considered four main options:

1) Advance Butifle to the finals
2) Advance mongobillione to the finals
3) Have the last game or the entire series between Butifle and mongobillione replayed
4) Disqualify mongobillione, and advance his last opponent, bwinner, to the semifinals instead. Then, have a series between Butifle and bwinner played, and advance the winner of this series to the finals

Although option (2) is reflective of the likely series result, we have no reason to believe that mongobillione will take the finals match seriously or even play it at all should he advance. Thus, neither option (2) nor option (3) are realistic. Option (4) is possible, but is difficult to move forward with because no rule was technically broken and because the players have already played through a series. Had mongobillione forfeited before the series was played or had he made a more egregious attempt to lose the match (e.g. by taking a similar lead in every game and then resigning), we would have considered this option more strongly. We therefore have decided to advance Butifle to the finals.

As we have decided that no rule has been broken, we will not be taking any action against mongobillione. However, we remark that his actions go against the spirit of competitive play and are highly disrespectful to everyone involved.

We are in the process of drafting a rule which will disallow players from intentionally losing their games in tournaments. As the TWC tournament is already underway, this rule will not apply to that tournament, but it will be enforced beginning with the next tournament held and all future tournaments thereafter.


Concluding Remarks

We would like to remind all players that the success of tournaments from both a player- and viewer-perspective is predicated on honest participation from all parties involved. Although the incident in this case is relatively minor (having taken place in a tournament with no prize pool), it is possible to see some parallels between this and match-fixing scandals in StarCraft: Brood War and StarCraft II, which had hugely detrimental effects on their respective eSports scenes. We take the matter of competitive integrity very seriously and will take measures to keep similar incidents from happening in the future.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 00:07
by jj0823
I don't know what happened at all, but this was a very well written report. I felt like I was reading some official medical analysis.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 00:20
by Mameluke
Ty for your efforts @all Admins.

The end of that game was so confusing. :D

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 00:32
by Warno
The right move IMO.

Whether people like it or not it is his spot in the tournament, he can forfeit if he wants... he had earned that spot in the semis.

It was a little strange but the series was still incredible to watch, one of the better of this tournament for sure.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 00:35
by JakeyBoyTH
ilovesquats wrote:Ty for your efforts @all Admins.

The end of that game was so confusing. :D


To get the attention of all the admins, use the @Diarouga tag.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 13:01
by sebnan12
there we go every post on our results thread was completly unnecessary.. ty @Vinyanyérë

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 13:44
by dietschlander
I'd still like to be informed about the true reason #esocdrama

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 13:50
by sebnan12
dietschlander wrote:I'd still like to be informed about the true reason #esocdrama

than u can pm me

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 13:58
by BrookG
In my humble opinion, the action of fakeHazza wasn't predecided, but rather an outcome of his personal reasons. One shouldn't be strict on the situation, considering it there was no benefit either in betting or in a possible winning award, but well-explained addition and decision for the upcoming tournaments. Thanks for your work admins!

PS. Drama is the food of ESOC. #esocdrama

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 14:14
by Gendarme
Stupid demons are still feeding on fel energy when there is ESOC-drama.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 15:05
by bwinner
Option 4 looks the best to me for sure !

Seriously, I think admin took the right decision and I would have taken the same decision if I was the admin.
However, I dislike the behaviour of @sebnan12 because if he had forfeited before the serie, I would have had a chance to play for the final. Instead, we had a fake match where you probably intentionnally lost every game after leading 3-1. As a result I feel that you didn't try to win the tourney and just kicked me out of it.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 15:31
by sebnan12
lol @bwinnner i dont think butifle minds to play vs u ..im also willing to give u my semi finals spot if its such a big deal for u

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 06 Jul 2017, 16:31
by deleted_user
You don't have the authority to do that though. The admin decision has been made - let's all move on.

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 07 Jul 2017, 09:48
by deleted_user0
bwinner1 wrote:Option 4 looks the best to me for sure !

Seriously, I think admin took the right decision and I would have taken the same decision if I was the admin.
However, I dislike the behaviour of @sebnan12 because if he had forfeited before the serie, I would have had a chance to play for the final. Instead, we had a fake match where you probably intentionnally lost every game after leading 3-1. As a result I feel that you didn't try to win the tourney and just kicked me out of it.


Tbh, this is all your fault! U shouldve just beaten sebnan after you had a 3-1 lead!!! :maniac:

Re: Competitive Ruling: Butifle vs. mongobillione

Posted: 07 Jul 2017, 10:18
by bwinner
umeu wrote:
bwinner1 wrote:Option 4 looks the best to me for sure !

Seriously, I think admin took the right decision and I would have taken the same decision if I was the admin.
However, I dislike the behaviour of @sebnan12 because if he had forfeited before the serie, I would have had a chance to play for the final. Instead, we had a fake match where you probably intentionnally lost every game after leading 3-1. As a result I feel that you didn't try to win the tourney and just kicked me out of it.


Tbh, this is all your fault! U shouldve just beaten sebnan after you had a 3-1 lead!!! :maniac:


That's totally true ;-)
But to be fair, our series had no real meaning, because for the 1st part he was stone so I won relatively easy and for the 2nd part I wasn't at home and was passing tons of exams so the conditions were bad too and he won relativly easy too