US TC Reflections

[Laurenti]

Simply put, an impartial admin's choices is what sealed our fate in the finals. While no one individual can be blamed for the tournament being delayed for so long, jcm having to wait 5 hours to play their finals was not a fun thing.

However this would be negligible ifnot for the fact we then had to wait another 50 minutes to play the 2nd game onward because of SR getting free time to deal with what we had to deal with all day (look at the vods vs. SR and see what happened to Kevi), and yet we STILL did not go outside the TC rules set. We ensured we never took over 20 minutes between games.

So while our co-captain was being ignored on real ID messaging Myrm and had to log on curse client and ask to speak to someone after 30ish minutes of waiting, it basically ended up with the solo admin disregarding the rules set which had previously disqualified another team, and giving jcm the middle finger for abiding by the rules.

EVEN THEN, we didn't ask for SR to be DQ'd, we simply asked that they be penalized 1 point for the wait, which was immediately dismissed and not fairly considered because of the partial solo admin.

Try playing a grand final after all that. Poor Roula had been up since 1am (so sorry to GSC and Ping) and didn't get done until noon. To be fair, SR originally asked to postpone the finals to the following night, but it was not possible for us, several members had irl commitments and only allowed the weekend for the twink cup.

I know any attempt to say this is probably seen as salt or whining, but I don't mind the loss to SR. They're an amazing team and are very much able to beat us when they want to. I'm frustrated at the rules being ignored, and no consideration given to us as a team where from our point of view every consideration was given to the other team.

Couldn't have said it any better. Mad respect to JCM, was a great tournament and very well played. Also sucks that the tournament format screwed you guys out of a game but oh well. You guys were just really unlucky, also **** of a series vs SR when you guys were actually awake lmao

 

[Twobuttons]

Simply put, an impartial admin's choices is what sealed our fate in the finals. While no one individual can be blamed for the tournament being delayed for so long, jcm having to wait 5 hours to play their finals was not a fun thing.

However this would be negligible ifnot for the fact we then had to wait another 50 minutes to play the 2nd game onward because of SR getting free time to deal with what we had to deal with all day (look at the vods vs. SR and see what happened to Kevi), and yet we STILL did not go outside the TC rules set. We ensured we never took over 20 minutes between games.

So while our co-captain was being ignored on real ID messaging Myrm and had to log on curse client and ask to speak to someone after 30ish minutes of waiting, it basically ended up with the solo admin disregarding the rules set which had previously disqualified another team, and giving jcm the middle finger for abiding by the rules.

EVEN THEN, we didn't ask for SR to be DQ'd, we simply asked that they be penalized 1 point for the wait, which was immediately dismissed and not fairly considered because of the partial solo admin.

Try playing a grand final after all that. Poor Roula had been up since 1am (so sorry to GSC and Ping) and didn't get done until noon. To be fair, SR originally asked to postpone the finals to the following night, but it was not possible for us, several members had irl commitments and only allowed the weekend for the twink cup.

I know any attempt to say this is probably seen as salt or whining, but I don't mind the loss to SR. They're an amazing team and are very much able to beat us when they want to. I'm frustrated at the rules being ignored, and no consideration given to us as a team where from our point of view every consideration was given to the other team.

Very well said.

-Rek

 

[Kiri]

Next time have a rule that punishes teams that stall games , going to 7 am etc makes a more than 10min wait in lnbetween games is just painful.
Rules shouls be enforced equally for all teams, gsc gets a dq for a move not stated in rules SR gets off scot for doing exactly the same. I dont think its due to bias , but will an outsider know that ?

Other than that great tournament fun watch.

 

[Stubs]

You know the tournament teams were **** when people like Snack plays in the semi final (and almost beating SR lol)

 

[Bake]

First off I'm sorry for the Gamers-League stream debacle and I'd like to thank everyone that stepped up to help organize and stream the event. Without HB, Muskie, Tasslehof, Ephidel, Alex, Moran, Ishape, Nicozy and probably a few that I'm forgetting, there would not have been a stream. I should have went with a community stream from the beginning, but I also want to thank Gamers-League for the extra exposure and recognition they did get us. On Friday we got at least 880 legit viewers, and possibly as many as 2100, and we were the #1 WoW stream for most of the day even after the viewer count sharply declined.

I know a lot of people are upset with me because of way the rules were handled, but it's ridiculous when people say I'm biased or corrupt. If I had enforced the rules as they were written probably the only team that would not have been disqualified would be Waka Flocka Seagulls, and while I appreciate and applaud their exemplary conduct throughout the event, this is supposed to be a grand spectacle to determine who the greatest twinks in the bracket are, not a Simon Says contest. The formatting rules are created to contribute to this theme, but unfortunately sometimes ceremony or formality must be sacrificed for the sake of practicality. It seemed like some players and even teams were more concerned with trying to find some loophole to have their opponents disqualified for than with actually trying to prove themselves to be the better team, which goes against the whole spirit of the event.

This is a community event and I wanted to try to ensure that everyone that was involved had a fair chance to compete. I'm not some soulless bureaucrat who's going to dq 13 players from a yearly event that they've spent months practicing and looking forward to because they accidentally used a toy or changed the name of a character on their roster. I changed the rules to allow a team to play with subs from outside their roster with the opposing team's permission to allow Alpha Echelon, EBLG, Beantown bullies, and GSC to continue playing despite roster difficulties, and now I have people accusing me of being callous towards or even conspiring against these teams.

I thought it would be unfair to force a team to play against a team who wasn't using the roster they signed up with if they were using theirs, but I was also counting on the good natured spirit of the community to prevent anyone from actually refusing a team the opportunity to play; this was a miscalculation on my part and I apologize. I understand that this is a competition and people want to win at whatever cost but it just seemed like some of you lacked even basic understanding and compassion for your opponents. I want to see the Twink Cup and the community grow larger but I don't want you to lose your humanity.

Last year the finals ended in a draw, and I didn't want the conclusion of this year's event to be another letdown. SR was allowed to delay because it was the finals so there were no games that needed to be played after, the schedule was already way off course, and a disqualification would not have been a proper end for such a grand event. It wouldn't have mattered which teams were playing in the finals, they would have had the same treatment as SR.

People brought up Partys Over like "if this was them they'd be dq'd" as if they completely forgot the outcome of last year's event. A lot of the drama last year came from the fact that I didn't dq Party's Over and give SR the win, instead allowing the teams to tie. A lot of the drama during the tournament in general came from the fact that I didn't dq Partys Over, even though there was the same sort of witch hunt mentality from some people last year towards them as there was towards SR this year.

I appreciate everyone that participated and helped with the event, and thank you especially to the people that donated money to allow this event to grow to the scale that it did. I'm sorry if I let anyone down but I really did my best to make this tournament as enjoyable and fair as possible for everyone.

Once again Myrm, thanks for not being bias or corrupt, the community really appreciates it.

Its also nice to see that this was a community funded event, and that these donators had complete trust that their money was going to a good cause and the winning team of the Twink Cup that played fair and did not cheat. It would be very unfortunate if cheating occurred and punishments were not en-stated because what is the odds of these donators going to donate massive amounts of money when they can not trust the organization? Expect not to see the same donators dishing out massive amounts of money if rules are not uphold.

 

[Yîng]

JCM got ****** over by having to wait so long for SR. SR should've had to put in a sub, and if they dont have a sub for the shaman that "dced", DQ them. I mean thats what happened to AE. Honestly feel so bad that JCM had to wait so long to play, and by the time they actually played, they were probably way too tired. JCM is the better team.

 

[Sketchbag]

The commentary was stellar and the streams were equally flattering! Great coverage, comments and stream chat incentive/prizes.

To all the teams that entered, I hope it was as much fun to play as it was to watch.

Thank you

 

[Sudowoodo]

All I have to say is that for you having 6-7 months to prepare for this tournament & for it have been run with such a lack of professionalism was pretty disappointing. If you came to me today & told me you began organizing this two weeks ago I wouldn't even question it. Gamersleague was an absolute joke, rules were straight up broken for some teams on a day to day basis, most rules weren't written clearly enough which lead to controversy & inevitably huge delays. Attempts to contact you before the tournament via your own thread to try & get clear rulings on very important topics which eventually came up in the tournament went unanswered for a weeks time, ect.

At the end of the day I think the only thing that actually held this circus together was quite literally the community. The games that happened brought the hype & you got extremely lucky people like HB, Muskie, ect. had your back & picked up what was essentially your broken pieces to ensure this tournament even happened. I cannot imagine having to cast games while also attempting to organize a team everyday & play competitively. Huge props to HB.

If you plan to organize a tournament of this magnitude again my advice would to bring in more people that know what they're doing. I saw so many people over the past 3-4 months offer up their professional help, people who had real experience running big tournaments & it appears their outreach went completely ignored. If you're planning on running leagues year round still I hope you reflect on this years cup & how it was ran so both your staff & the teams participating aren't run through the wringer again.

Just my raw opinion.

- Sudo

 

[Eliot]

As an observer, I enjoyed the commentary quite a bit and think everyone involved did a stellar job. Looking forward I think the rules need to be clearly and absolutely defined beforehand and enforced exactly as outlined. Anything else will end up like this, with a win clouded by rule bending.

If the rules were bent or changed during the tournament to prevent mass disqualifying then instead of writing unforgiving rules in the beginning you should build proper rules to support the type of tournament you want to see.

Best of luck in 2016!

 

[Bake]

All I have to say is that for you having 6-7 months to prepare for this tournament & for it have been run with such a lack of professionalism was pretty disappointing. If you came to me today & told me you began organizing this two weeks ago I wouldn't even question it. Gamersleague was an absolute joke, rules were straight up broken for some teams on a day to day basis, most rules weren't written clearly enough which lead to controversy & inevitably huge delays. Attempts to contact you before the tournament via your own thread to try & get clear rulings on very important topics which eventually came up in the tournament went unanswered for a weeks time, ect.

At the end of the day I think the only thing that actually held this circus together was quite literally the community. The games that happened brought the hype & you got extremely lucky people like HB, Muskie, ect. had your back & picked up what was essentially your broken pieces to ensure this tournament even happened. I cannot imagine having to cast games while also attempting to organize a team everyday & play competitively. Huge props to HB.

If you plan to organize a tournament of this magnitude again my advice would to bring in more people that know what they're doing. I saw so many people over the past 3-4 months offer up their professional help, people who had real experience running big tournaments & it appears their outreach went completely ignored. If you're planning on running leagues year round still I hope you reflect on this years cup & how it was ran so both your staff & the teams participating aren't run through the wringer again.

Just my raw opinion.

- Sudo

I agree sudo, its sad the basics rules can't even be uphold.

 

[PPPopper]

I missed a lot of the games because I fell asleep on hb stream waiting for games to start. People curious about the bracket are not going to wait 45 min for a game like the dedicated people of the bracket. The highlight for me was the haxball going on in the finals in was more entertaining then watching the turtle.

Time rule needs to be enforced. Plenty of athletes/teams work years for a tournament but one violation of te rules and the are DQ'd. Just for the flow of games, players, and the people watching to gauge interest.

Haxball on every stream to delay the games!

 

[IhazBankz]

I feel the timing was so unfair to any Eu players who managed to get to the finals, ofc it wont be brilliant playing on US servers but 6/7am ? Thats crazy even for people who are up all night. I personally didnt watch the games on sunday but from what i have read one team was punished for breaking a rule, which the other was not. Not exactly fair in most people's books.

 

[Skeezin]

I feel the timing was so unfair to any Eu players who managed to get to the finals, ofc it wont be brilliant playing on US servers but 6/7am ? Thats crazy even for people who are up all night. I personally didnt watch the games on sunday but from what i have read one team was punished for breaking a rule, which the other was not. Not exactly fair in most people's books.

yeah the tournament ended up finishing at like 10/11 am for eu lmao

 

[Muskie]

I know people are hating on PING for some of the decisions we made during this tournament, but there is a very clear reason why we chose to make those decisions.

Imagine Zeiren was unable to play those games, or if Grizzle had been hit off, and they were literally unable to play a 10v10 because they simply didnt have enough people on their roster, do you let them sub out of their team? PING made the decision to uphold the rules as they were written because we were cognizant of the impact it could have on the rest of the tournament. We were making a statement that rules are rules, and if we let EBLG or AE slide, who's to say WFS,JCM,SR,GSC etc couldn't do the same. We were literally trying to prevent the controversy of what is happening now. We also stated we would wait all night to play AE/EBLG with their full roster. Same thing with Harvest.

Also, the GSC thing was a clear exploit (which is in the rules), im not going to reply to any arguments here about wether or not it was, or really anything about that situation but Myrm, you should have made a ruling in 5 minutes instead of having a conversation with us for an hour or whatever it was. It was draining for all of us.

I had words with some members of the community who thought that it wasn't an exploit, or at the very least was "grey area" and my position on that is this; if you think we are scummy twinks because we dont let teams sub outside their roster, take a look at the other teams(yes, teams) in the community who were willing to hide VERY questionable strategies from the community to cheese the **** out of some games and pull a win, undermining the tournament, the community, and the other teams. ANYTHING grey area that I was doing in regards to jumps was brought out in the open far in advance of the twink cup, and rules were decided, and what i was doing was explicitly said to be allowed. You can go back and look at my post and see where i said that i did it to try and bring it to the attention of the community. Multiple teams were aware of this hearthstone deltion "strategy", and were planning to use it. Nobody brought it up.

I really am disappointed with the lack of honour and legitimacy some teams had coming into this tournament, in my opinion, everyone should be on a fair playing field. Your wins should come from strategic movement, composition, or coordination, not opening your ******* gm tab. I'd also like to say this, apart from some random toy dropping from SR, they were one of the most respectable teams in the tournament when it came to the rules, to my knowledge. As far as I know, they are one of the few teams who weren't ready to pull out an exploit in a back against the wall situation.

To those saying what was done didnt have an impact on the game? Sure it did, our gauntlet was 'broken' and we were forced to regroup after a wipe instead of just sending our team out again. there was LITERALLY no way we could have lost that game in the gauntlet situation, we could have had another attempt at breaking it, and it likely could have been successful.

Oh, and about the Ele force on the Sader swapping? Here are the rules HB,Pizza, and I wrote out months ago. It isn't my fault the rules committee ****** up on being clear, JrBigChief was not breaking ANY RULES, when this was all discussed ages ago and people were CLEARLY AWARE that you were able to swap from Sader to Ele. Go look at HB's podcast covering the topic.

"-*THIS RULE APPLIES TO ARMS WARRIORS*
Weapon enchant buff stacking. You are not allowed to swap from crusader to landslide, landslide to crusader, crusader to crusader or landslide to landslide. If any of these procs overlap, or any stacking of 2 or more proc buffs, you will forfeit the game. "


SO TO ALL THOSE GIVING **** TO PING



























**** you



P.S. I have love for GSC, I think they beat us mid when no other team really seemed like they could. Eu love, all that ****, think you guys have some dope players but its ****** this happened and its really a statement about the community overall, not just you guys.

 

[Zeiren]

JCM got ****** over by having to wait so long for SR. SR should've had to put in a sub, and if they dont have a sub for the shaman that "dced", DQ them. I mean thats what happened to AE. Honestly feel so bad that JCM had to wait so long to play, and by the time they actually played, they were probably way too tired. JCM is the better team.

Check the VoD's, please..

Everyone is getting the facts wrong.

There was a ~20 minute delay after the SR won against GSC.

Going into the first game of SR vs JCM, Kevikev was claiming a ddos and was disconnecting from the game. Afterwards, JCM called a recess which lasted about 12-13 minutes, the extra 3 minutes was due to the host being camped in Org.

In the second game SR immediately left the game as one of their Shamans (me) was experiencing high latency. (was not a ddos). The wait time between the second game lasted roughly 30 minutes (not 45min - 1hr as most claim). It wasn't long before SR called to continue the games with one of the Shamans being crippled. I'm not quite sure how long was spent, but there was a discussion during that 30 minute break on whether or not both teams would continue to play or to reschedule for another date.

Twitch

It was primarily the events that led up to the finals that ultimately made this tournament extend longer than it should have. I agree that there definitely should have been some strict rules on the time limit of breaks, they shouldn't have been decided so late. Though, I agree 100% with Myrm's decisions throughout the tournament. Many of these rules were quite ridiculous in my opinion and for people to go out of their way to find loopholes in the rules and make elaborate screenshots as a ploy to disqualify the opposing team is quite sad. At first I thought it was just for the money but it's clear that people are out to get each other by any means necessary and that is disappointing. I was hoping that the majority of the players that played looked at the tournament as a fun competition to spark activity in the bracket; the money was just a bonus. We are a community that literally knocked at the gates of the Blizzard headquarters and got our bracket recognition via twitter, the main events on the front page of WoW, etc, which as a result brought more players into the bracket. I think that was the one of the main purposes of this event. Disqualifying teams over silly minor rules is not good entertainment. (toys.. someone name changing or race changing .....).

Despite the fact that the entire tournament had been quite bumpy, it was not only enjoyable to play in but to watch as well. Probably the most fun I've had playing in my 11 years of WoW and I've never felt so close to a such a great group of friends. Big props to Myrm for putting up with this for a second time. I'm positive that if there is another event, Myrm is aware of the changes that need to be made in order to make it go more smoothly.

 

[Darkchewie]

Simply put, an impartial admin's choices is what sealed our fate in the finals. While no one individual can be blamed for the tournament being delayed for so long, jcm having to wait 5 hours to play their finals was not a fun thing.

However this would be negligible if not for the fact we then had to wait another 50 minutes to play the 2nd game onward because of SR getting free time to deal with what we had to deal with all day (look at the vods vs. SR and see what happened to Kevi), and yet we STILL did not go outside the TC rules set. We ensured we never took over 20 minutes between games.

So while our co-captain was being ignored on real ID messaging Myrm and had to log on curse client and ask to speak to someone after 30ish minutes of waiting, it basically ended up with the solo admin disregarding the rules set which had previously disqualified another team, and giving jcm the middle finger for abiding by the rules.

EVEN THEN, we didn't ask for SR to be DQ'd, we simply asked that they be penalized 1 point for the wait, which was immediately dismissed and not fairly considered because of the impartial solo admin.

Try playing a grand final after all that. Poor Roula had been up since 1am (so sorry to GSC and Ping) and didn't get done until noon. To be fair, SR originally asked to postpone the finals to the following night, but it was not possible for us, several members had irl commitments and only allowed the weekend for the twink cup.

I know any attempt to say this is probably seen as salt or whining, but I don't mind the loss to SR. They're an amazing team and are very much able to beat us when they want to. I'm frustrated at the rules being ignored, and no consideration given to us as a team where from our point of view every consideration was given to the other team.

You act like JCM was the only guild that had to wait. We all dealt with the aftermath of the Ping BS .

its funny how you wanted to get us penalized a point yet earlier in the first series we played against jcm sudo asked if we would wait for kevi since he was getting dossed, which we said we would do as long as you returned the favor if something happened to us. Ya forget about that? Ill have pizza get the screenshot. And he wasn't gone 50 minutes you're exaggerating severely go look at the time in the vids.

To everyone else - all of you can keep up your witch hunt against SR to try and justify to yourselves why we won, but when it comes down to it we allowed concessions to everyone we played without question because we just wanted to beat you all in the gulch. We let alpha sub, we waited for kevi. We didn't resort to petty bullshit like bakemaster trying to get us dq'd for a Bigmoran name change because he knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with us in the actual game.

 

[Snack]

I really am disappointed with the lack of honour and legitimacy some teams had coming into this tournament, in my opinion, everyone should be on a fair playing field. Your wins should come from strategic movement, composition, or coordination, not opening your ******* gm tab.
.

This is gold. You literally tried to dq every team you met.

You know the tournament teams were **** when people like Snack plays in the semi final (and almost beating SR lol)

Auch...
Don't be mad just because you were benched by pizza xoxo

 

[Zuladin]

Aside from the previously stated information thus far: SR technically losing, and the ridiculous wait time JSC had to endure to finally play a game without miraculously not falling asleep at their keyboard or getting probed by aliens. There is one other thing that is being overlooked. This isn't to **** on JCM or anything, but if they hadn't dropped the ball by handing the second game to SR, I feel as though the final series would've been much different. JCM would have the momentum heading into the next game.

Meanwhile, Skill Ratio would have to fight to stay composed to win the next two or face elimination. I felt as though Skill Ratio played better in the first game of the first series, the first game of the second series and the last game of the second series following the momentum shift of the second game. Switching to the fotm comp was clearly the right idea for Skill Ratio. Good for them for noticing it in time. Props to them for running with a lock for that long and having success with it. Both SR and JCM played exceptionally well, especially Skill Ratio for edging them out when it mattered. SR also played solid throughout the entire tournament. Respect to them.

 

[Snack]

Oh, and about the Ele force on the Sader swapping? Here are the rules HB,Pizza, and I wrote out months ago. It isn't my fault the rules committee ****** up on being clear, JrBigChief was not breaking ANY RULES, when this was all discussed ages ago and people were CLEARLY AWARE that you were able to swap from Sader to Ele. Go look at HB's podcast covering the topic.

"-*THIS RULE APPLIES TO ARMS WARRIORS*
Weapon enchant buff stacking. You are not allowed to swap from crusader to landslide, landslide to crusader, crusader to crusader or landslide to landslide. If any of these procs overlap, or any stacking of 2 or more proc buffs, you will forfeit the game. "

EF counts as a proc enchant. You were not allowed to have 2x proc enchants active at a time, meaning that you cant switch to a wep enchanted with EF when you get a crusader/landslide proc.

 

[Sudowoodo]

You act like JCM was the only guild that had to wait. We all dealt with the aftermath of the Ping BS .

its funny how you wanted to get us penalized a point yet earlier in the first series we played against jcm sudo asked if we would wait for kevi since he was getting dossed, which we said we would do as long as you returned the favor if something happened to us. Ya forget about that? Ill have pizza get the screenshot. And he wasn't gone 50 minutes you're exaggerating severely go look at the time in the vids.

To everyone else - all of you can keep up your witch hunt against SR to try and justify to yourselves why we won, but when it comes down to it we allowed concessions to everyone we played without question because we just wanted to beat you all in the gulch. We let alpha sub, we waited for kevi. We didn't resort to petty bullshit like bakemaster trying to get us dq'd for a Bigmoran name change because he knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with us in the actual game.

I knew the chat would come up sooner or later.

The difference was we made you wait around for maybe 10 minutes before we decided to just yolo q & play out whatever happened. It was our mistake, ect. It was also like 10pm est when that happened in our first series.

I can assure you a 10 minute wait at 10pm & a 30-40 minute wait at 3am (it was like 11am for others on my team) are not the same thing.

Again, the decision had to come down to the myrm. We weren't crying for a DQ like many people were, we asked for a point, it was denied. This is a perfect example of where rules were bent whether you want to acknowledge it or not. AA was dq'd the day before after 20 minutes of the exact same situation. Our delay was nearly double that & nothing happened at all.

Rules need to be clearly written & upheld for every team involved if he plans to run future tournaments. That's all that needs to be said.