Open up any South African Dota 2 page right now and you’ll see all the Sky Gaming and In-Finity Gaming drama unfold before your eyes. If you don’t have the time to browse trough several hundred comments and meme posts, allow me to sum it up:
IFG.Salt (a now somewhat apt name) played their final DGC playoff game against a team known as Sky Gaming. Since my departure from Dota 2, none of these teams mean anything to me, but after close inspection I felt there are a few things which need to be brought to light. So, IFG.Salt beat Sky Gaming, 2-0, after which Sky Gaming opened a ticket with the DGL admins over a mismatched Steam ID. Now the player, whose ID didn’t match, had recently made a new account and had not yet properly completed his DGL profile.
What happened? A clearly inferior team were awarded a win they couldn’t achieve even if IFG.Salt played with one eye closed. This is the general consensus, not my opinion.
Needless to say, there was an eruption of opinions, name calling and meme generating as many South African loudmouths took to Facebook to express their heartache. There were those who added constructively pointing out the two major issues at hand here: First the DGLs massive mistake and poor handling of the situation, and secondly the lengths some teams are willing to go to make it to a tournament. Let’s be brutally honest here, Sky Gaming don’t stand a chance even if they end up going.
Why does this rule exist?
Because you’re allowed to change your nickname on Steam as much as you like, the DGL rule is in place to disallow the use of players who are not on the team roster. So for example, if my team was short one player I’d ask a friend to change his nickname to that of my missing player and Bob’s your uncle, I have my full team. That was not the case, according to the DGL Match Thread (the birth place of all drama and banter) IFGs player had started using a new Steam account, since Dota 2 is free to play, and had not completed his profile. Sky Gaming saw this is as the perfect opportunity to overrule their victory and secure their place at the Do Gaming Championships.
I’ve dabbled in a bit of tournament hosting and administration before, and while rules are important, if a team came to me after a game and tried to enforce a rule, I’d tell them off. Sky Gaming must have known this rule existed, and I’m almost certain they knew prior to the match, but perhaps they saw an easy way out? A good sportsman would at least warn his opposition of this technicality, but instead they’d wasted time paying two matches, which IFG won convincingly I’m told, only to be shut down by the antics of teenagers.
Why am I so upset on the matter? There are individuals out there who put in insurmountable amounts of work to grow the community, become the best and reach a comparable level to that of our international rivals. These sort of situations are not uncommon throughout the globe, but in comparison the DGL/DGC are where our “most professional” teams play, yet some of these teams do not posses a professional bone in their body. IFG are a well-known sponsored team, who have gone undefeated, and now their DGC dream is dead.
A mixture of poor sportsmanship and poor administration, two issues which need to be discussed and dealt with if we ever want to move forward.
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Last Updated: September 18, 2015
Grand Admiral Chief
September 18, 2015 at 13:53
WUT?
Kromas untamed
September 18, 2015 at 14:11
Not touching this one.
HvR
September 18, 2015 at 15:00
https://tiggnet.com/images/articleimg/obiwan_butthurt.jpg
Aries
September 18, 2015 at 14:03
Something similar happened in the BF4 DGC playoffs where one player was auto kicked from the server during the match and banned from server for 10minutes or so because of a unstable ping, rules says you cant have a 100ms average ping true, but it also says that you cant have any plugins running on the server, and it was the other teams server also
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 14:05
Dot the “i”s, cross the “t”s.
Witcher Bob
September 18, 2015 at 14:06
“Now the player, whose ID didn’t match, had recently made a new account and had not yet properly completed his DGL profile” – He didn’t do what he was supposed to. Teams are expected to act professionally but administration (no matter how frustrating) is a part of the job. That player is the cause of the loss not the opposing team. Simple as that.
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 14:16
Yip. It sucks, might not be fair, but them’s the rules.
I’ve been to tender doc reveals where the cut-off time to hand in the tender is 12pm on the dot. You arrive 1 second after that & they chase you away. Seen it happen.
Michael Matusowsky
September 18, 2015 at 15:04
I went through most of the rosters and found that some of the top teams didn’t have completed profiles either, the main issue is that the DGL admins are selectively applying this rule. They are not being consistent. If they had to enforce the rule across the board, teams like Energy and Bravado would both be bottom of the Premier Logs. That’s the underlying issue here.
Witcher Bob
September 18, 2015 at 15:19
Fair enough but in this case did all the Sky players have completed DGL profiles? If yes, then their ticket is completely valid. If no, then I don’t see why Salt can’t counter their claim.
Michael Matusowsky
September 19, 2015 at 11:03
Sky did, Salt did not. Like I said, a lot of the profiles (and I’m saying a number higher than 30% of profiles) weren’t completed as they should have been which affected almost half the teams. It’s not fair on the admins part to only be applying the rule when discrepencies have been pointed out. I’m in half a mind to compile a list of all games affected and send it through to the admins and see what they’ll do about it when eNergy and Bravado aren’t able to attend anymore because of this stupid rule.
Robin Stuart Pretorius
September 19, 2015 at 12:35
Are you sure the detail is not just hidden from public view? Remember a profile can look incomplete to you because those details are hidden from your eyes, but not from the DGL administrators eyes.
Michael Matusowsky
September 21, 2015 at 00:58
It’s available for everyone to see.
Robin Stuart Pretorius
October 14, 2015 at 18:59
Fully understand then if they marked their profile like that, however I do know you can make the settings quite private. Every line on the personal section of your profile can be ticked for private except for your gamertags. and according to a sentence at the bottom of the page, none of the gamertag info is required to enter into a tournament or ladder(as it does not have * next to it).
Charl van der Merwe
September 18, 2015 at 14:22
You speak about this as if this is something new ? Have you ever played in the DGL?
It’s actually happened to my team every single season I played CSGO. One team loses and attempts to get a technicality over the other,bla bla it happens every single week. It’s lame yes, but its in the rules, the best way to combat it is to just make sure you have your shit together, and if you put so much time and effort to get so far, some minor administration should really be the easy part.
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 14:35
Yup. Wait until it happens to you and you lose your championship spot, because one person is a sore loser.
Wait, it sounds more like it won’t happen to you ever. Because you’re that one person…
Charl van der Merwe
September 18, 2015 at 14:45
Agh it has happened to my team lol, wasn’t a championship spot but it was our chance to move to a higher division.
Let me ask you this, you agree this rule is needed right? for obvious reasons.The rule has been enforced hundreds of times over the years, if it is over ruled this one time, that means that hundreds of teams in the past can now come and dispute it.Every decision in the past comes under scrutiny and it actually just makes a mockery of regulations and rules in competition.
Yes it sucks I agree, but honestly this is a rookie mistake, even a low level player like me could have avoided such a simple error.Changing your steam account is a HUGE thing when you are on such a high level of competition.They would come across these kinds of disputes many times on their way to the top, they should have known better.
Dutch Matrix
September 18, 2015 at 14:27
Hence why I will remain Single Player for Life.
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 14:32
Yeah, that’s the reason…
HairyEwok
September 21, 2015 at 08:51
Don’t go being just Single Player, be a Casual Multiplayer too.
Fonfon
September 19, 2015 at 00:26
We, iFG.salt, will not give up. Sky might of robbed us of dgc this year but we will continue to practise and return next year.
TheGarethWoods
September 19, 2015 at 13:55
No. Sky didn’t “rob you”. You robbed yourself with poor administration.
Holden ZA
September 19, 2015 at 09:25
I’ve been a tournament admin for the past 6 years now and judging from what I’ve read
TheGarethWoods
September 19, 2015 at 13:58
100% if the admins had decided the other way (ie in Salt’s favour) would’ve been even worse exploitation.
Fact is that stacks of teams are using smurf accounts and this rule is meant to stop that (although it’s still easy to work around)
In the end, it sucks that these guys lose out, but it’s only because it was at the end of the tournament. Technically they could’ve been disqualified from day 1 then we wouldn’t be having this conversation
Peet Luckhoff
September 19, 2015 at 12:09
Rules are Rules…
Robin Stuart Pretorius
September 19, 2015 at 12:45
Let us remember the rules are basic and straight forward for a reason. This is a free tournament. The costs that would go in to ensure a “Know your player” integrity exists would be quite extensive. DGL would require a relationship with Steam to provide IP address information of the respective players during a match. As well as the relevant device mac addresses. However, in a sporting environment(you know those games with balls?), a larger investigation would have been done, there would have been disciplinary hearings and ultimately a fine. Depending on the unregistered players impact on the match, an investigating board could either write off the results completely(make it a draw) or leave it as is. I think forcing the match into a forfeit especially when this can result in unfair advantage is wrong but those are the DGL rules. DGL acted in accordance with their set guidelines, maybe the issue here is over how incidents and rule breaking is handled in higher tier matches.
RedRover
September 21, 2015 at 11:21
I am sorry Kyle, But I think you are way out on a tangent here. Rules should not be applied based on who we like and don’t like. With any online league “identity” is a very important thing. You attempt to play down the transgression by comparing it to a friend helping out. But that is a misdirection and you know it. There have been many cases of “smurfing” across all game types that involve a deliberate attempt to cheat by having a “ringer” who is more skilled that the original player stand in and and secure a win. Did IFG do this? I don’t know, but that’s not the point. The rule is there for a very valid reason and to try and undermine it shocking at least.