SK threatens to disqualify after losing 2-0

I was going to refrain from posting this, in hopes of working everything out quietly and between only the two parties involved, but after seeing that fail I think I should let everyone know what's going on with the current 5v5 tournament, and why you may see a forfeit by our name for the match result. I am going to copy the email that I sent to SK's managing owners, which should do the bulk of the explaining:


Hello,

My name is Veex, I am the leader of the arena team "teh supeh gosus" (TSG) and one of the players that is a part of your World of Warcraft invitational tournament.

I am writing this letter to express my frustration and disappointment from the outcome of our match versus SK-Gaming tonight. The matches are played as a best of five series. We won the first game with no issues or complaints, and then went on to win the second match, which was when the trouble began...

During game two, SK's priest (player Mykke) started off the game aggressively by attempting to chain mana burn our mage and healers. As a result, he was out of mana after only two minutes and began to play defensively. When our team noticed this we quickly called for a switch onto him, and spell locked his holy spells and then proceeded to kill him with a high amount of burst damage ( http://www.veevsvault.com/combatlog_warrior_pov.jpg ) before his other healer could react.

After the game was over I returned to IRC to schedule the third match. Neilyo mentioned the priest had lagged, but I decided to refrain from saying anything in hopes of preventing the explosive drama that was to follow. We set up the third match and both teams joined, with the exception of SK's priest. After leaving that 4v5 game, Neilyo prepares us to play another game, but our mage disconnects from Ventrilo. After waiting about two minutes for him to return, we ask if they are still ready to play, and it is at this point in time when Neilyo begins claiming the second match needs to be replayed due to the priest's lag.

Before we can even begin to refute it, we are informed that Trance has already decided that the match must be replayed. This decision was made without consulting a single member of TSG first, which I believe shows an extreme amount of bias that a tournament admin simply should not be allowed to have.

We then joined a private IRC channel to discuss what had happened, but it was quickly apparent to me that there would be little to no reasoning. They had already made up their minds and were intent on using their privileges and power as the tournament host to make the final call. Hoping that we would just allow ourselves to be walked over, they proceed to threaten us with disqualification and snide remarks:
http://www.veevsvault.com/bg9tourn.txt

Player Neilyo continues to harass me with private messages:
http://www.veevsvault.com/SK_Neilyo.txt

http://www.veevsvault.com/SK_Mykke.txt

I think it is very unfortunate that a friendly tournament like this has had to come to the extreme measure of emailing the hosting company's owners, but I feel we have been put in such an unfair position that we are left with no other choice. We have a great deal of respect for SK-Gaming, and are very appreciative that you are hosting the first 5v5 tournament, giving players an opportunity to compete like they never had before. But the way we have been treated by a select few of your members has left us feeling shocked and assaulted, and leaves us with no other course of action but to contact you.

I have postponed our match until Wednesday night, and hope to hear from you soon. Your response will determine how we proceed with this tournament match, or if we allow them to win by forfeit.

Many thanks and best regards,
Veex


The SK owners then forwarded the email to Gosey, the manager of their WoW team, and I was met with this reply:

Hello Veex,

My name is Sebastian aka gosey and I'm the manager of the SK Gaming World of Warcraft team. First of all I'm sorry for all the troubles this game has caused and I hope you guys can figure something out together.

After talking to the SK members and reading your guys statements, I can't really say anything that it's your words against eachother. SK claims that the disconnect affected the match while you guys don't. Unfortunately I can't really give you an opinion on what should be done since I wasn't there . However trance is running the show and we have absolute faith in the great job he's doing with the tournament.

You have to know that trance is working for our website, which is a totally different part of SK, and has no connection with the team.

Personally I would like to see the match replayed, but then again I wasn't there to see it happen so who am I to give advice. I know that the rules have been changed now since this incident, which is great so we don't have to run into this problem anymore. Of course it sucks for you guys since you were on a roll, but I think that the SK players feel that they are the underdog in this matchup (and I agree with them) which in some way could explain what they are doing.

We do however apologize for our players behaviour, it's totally unprofessional and it's something that we'll have to work on. I hope that you guys can come down to your senses and maybe proove the SK players that the disconnect wouldn't have affected the match.

Thanks for letting us know your view on this matter and once again apologizes to you and your teammates for the behaviour of some of our players.

Best Regards,

Sebastian Selin
SK Gaming


A sincere and civil reply, which I did appreciate, but the part quoted in bold only left me even more infuriated. We have appealed to the powers that be and achieved nothing, so now we are left with two options: do whatever they say or drop out of the tournament.

If this was a 1v1 tournament I personally would have already dropped out, because it absolutely disgusts me to see a team of players (or at least one player, Neilyo) try to get away with something so low and dishonest like this. No matter the outcome now, many of their names and the tournament itself is already tarnished in my eyes.

But I am not going to let my opinions put my team at a disadvantage, so we will wait and see what they have to say tonight before we decide what we are doing. Trance approached me again last night, several hours after this event had passed, and had this to say (after he allowed me to show him the various logs and screenshots to backup our side of the story): "I will tell you that this info does look better for your side though."

So, to be concluded...

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