[OGN] Hot6ix Champions Spring 2014 - Page 8

On August 27 2003 03:13 mensrea wrote:
Group B

[Red]Nada (T) ("Lee Yoon-yul") v Yellow (Z) ("Hong Jin-ho") - Guillotine

Prolly one of the most controversial games in a while. Why? Because it LOOKED like Nada threw away the match on purpose and gave Yellow the win. Now, conspiracies, by their very nature, are difficult-to-prove beasts that seem visible only through peripheral vision. For every incriminating smoking gun, there are two very plausible explanations.

But, in all honesty, this one really does look, smell and act like the proverbial "duck." The motive was there (I'll get to that shortly), Nada has a history of throwing games when it suited his interests (Most notably v Elky in the Panasonic OGN Starleague where he lost on purpose so that he could avoid Boxer in the next round. Nada even let Elky nuke him a couple of times in that one and was shown on-camera laughing about it.) and, really, SO many people (including yours truly) were talking about Nada throwing the game days BEFORE the game!

It didn't help matters that Nada played worse than I've ever seen him play in a live TV tournament (I challenge anyone to come up with an example of him playing worse - you won't find any). Yellow (@1) basically won by early mass ling containing/harassing then powering to mass hydra/lurkers and overwhelming Nada (@11), who seemed inexplicably incapable of dojng anything right. Some highlights include:

- suspiciously low M&M count throughout the match. Please, when was the last time anyone saw Nada unable to produce hordes of units in the blink of an eye? It was like he was playing war3 or something, the marine count was so pitiful.

- The now-infamous play where Nada lets his rines go at it head-to-head with a superior ling force without medic support - when the medics were 2 seconds away?!?! Oh, yeah, I see a person back there raising his hand and saying "well, maybe Nada forgot to micro?" My answer to that is: STFU newbie and educate yourself before opining on matters you know nothing about! Nada doesn't make mistakes like that - not when the game's for real.

- The head-scratching proxy rax at the beginning somewhere just outside the 4 expo - right where it can be spotted by the next drone that decides to pathfind its way to an expansion. I know what some of you are thinking: "Hey, fuck you mensrea, I didn't see any proxy rax!" That's because you took a bathroom break. The rax got cancelled after a few passes by the builder SCV. Even the OGN commentators were stammering to come up with a theory as to just WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO ACCOMPLISH.

- Generally inept micro by Nada throughout the match. Even watched Nada leave his lone SV floating above a cluster of hungry hydras to be picked off easily as Yellow's forces were running crazy inside Nada's main. You know Nada's micro is leaking oil when the foremost line of defense against mass hydra/lurkers is a single, uncontrolled SV.

- Generally horrible in-game management. Yellow played ok, but I've never seen Nada get led by the nose like this by a Zerg user. Nada DOMINATES opponents, and even when he doesn't, the other guy's giving 110% just to stay ahead. This was a one-way steamrolling against Nada. WTF.

All this looks pretty damning in my opinion. But, what about the motives? Well, the motive would be to give Yellow another chance at advancing to the final 8. If Yellow had lost his match v Nada, both he and Chojja would be out for good, while both Nada and Nal_rA would advance from their Group no matter what. But what about Nada tho? Why would KTF sacrifice Nada? By losing on purpose, wouldn't that put an unreasonably high amount of pressure on Nada to win v Nal_rA (who's been like 3-0 v Lee their last three meetings) in their final round robin game in order to advance? And on Paradoxxx no less!

Yeah, it does look like a weird gamble by KTF. Or does it? To get a feel for what KTF MAY HAVE been considering (I'm not saying that KTF's a match-fixing bunch of fags yet, ok!) prior to the match, let's take a look at some of the possibilities now that Yellow has "won" over Nada.

Regarding the remaining games in Group B, if:

1. Nal_rA > Nada AND Chojja > Yellow -> Nal_rA (3-0) advances to the final 8 while Nada, Yellow and Chojja (all 1-2) go to a play-off to determine which ONE player gets to continue.

2. Nal_rA > Nada AND Yellow > Chojja -> Nal_rA (3-0) and Yellow (2-1) advance, while Nada and Chojja (both 1-2) go home.

3. Nada > Nal_rA AND Chojja > Yellow -> Nal_rA and Nada (both 2-1) advance, while Yellow and Chojja (1-2) are eliminated.

4. Nada > Nal_rA AND Yellow > Chojja -> Nada, Nal_rA and Yellow (all 2-1) will do a play-off to see which TWO players get to advance. Chojja (0-3) is gone.


I don't need to explain to you what all this means. I think it speaks for itself. Regardless of whether there really was a conspiracy by KTF to fix the outcome of the Yellow v Nada match, it seems clear that, at the very least, having Nada lose to Yellow on purpose wasn't such a very big risk to take after all - especially given Nada's habitual domination of Chojja, as well as Yellow's stated confidence against the Sun God, Nal_rA, all factors to be considered when planning for a possible play-off.

Waxangel made a point in the forum that there's no rule that says you have to try to win in a game. I saw red when I read this. I apologized to Wax afterwards for being snarky about it, but I'm still of the opinion that people who throw games on purpose should be, if not censured, then at the very least not be applauded for their actions. What the hell's admirable about using loopholes in the system governing a GAMING TOURNAMENT? How is it respectable to follow the letter of the rules of a GAMING TOURNAMENT while avoiding adherence to its spirit? Fuck legalistic interpretations. This isn't taxation law for crissakes where exploiting loopholes is almost encouraged. This is a game. It's supposed to involve certain ideals that go beyond what's explicitly stated. Since when does integrity, fairness and good manners in-game have to be legislated? My answer is it doesn't. It's a givens. It's part of what makes you a PROFESSIONAL GAMER.

And, assuming KTF did what many suspect they did, maybe OGN can't punish KTF for their rigging even with proof (like Wax said, there are no rules against not trying, are there...?), but KTF, Nada and maybe even Yellow certainly don't deserve my fan mail for it. Quite the opposite. They deserve all the HATE mail in the world. If they did it.

And not just KTF: some of the blame should be apportioned to the fags at OGN for not seeing such things coming to begin with (it's nothing new) and devising a system to address the possibility. Elky mentioned to me something he heard about having players from the same team always playing first in the Group matches and thus avoid future scenarios where someone might be tempted to tinker with the outcome to begin with. It sounds like a good start. I hope OGN and other tournaments implement it asap.

Anyway, like I said, nothing's for certain, but I've seen Nada pull this kinda shit off before and I'm not gonna give him and KTF the benefit of the doubt this time. I dunno about you guys, but I will be rooting my lungs out for Nal_rA and Chojja to pimp the KTF players' sorry asses from now through any necessary re-games.