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ASUS ROG - Assembly Summer 2011 Aftermath
August 16th, 2011 08:32 GMT
Grnp's Tournament Wrap Up - Official Replay PackWhew! I'm back from the Assembly Summer ASUS ROG Tournament, and what a trip it was! First off, congratulations to mTw.Dimaga on his championship! Despite being recognized as one of the world's best players since the beta, this was his very first championship at a major live tournament. As a lot of people have seen now through videos and pictures, he was extremely happy to win. The replay pack is out now, so definitely check it out! Overall, it was a pretty cool event to attend live. The tournament area was good for players, though there were a few minor problems like the A/C being too cold (and I'm from Sweden!), and the desks being slightly cramped for certain mouse-keyboard setups. It was a nice environment for the audience as well, as you could see all the players screens from the crowd area even though there was the (much needed) seperation between player and crowd. However, it was a bit disappointing that the tournament area couldn't have been any bigger, though the organizers did the best with the section of the floor they were given. It just seems that a tournament with so many high level players and so much prize money should have had a bigger venue. The place held about 100 people, and was almost always packed. Not that I am complaining about my personal viewing experience, which was great! The finals were played on the main stage in front of a huge LAN area with thousands of people. A lot of them were just on their computers playing other games or doing something else, but anyone who looked up could catch a high quality Starcraft II match. The best series of the tournament was definitely the Stephano vs Dimaga semi-final series, which was better than even the exciting comeback finals. It really showed what's possible in ZvZ when two great players face each other, and I think that it will have made ZvZ some people's favorite matchup. Especially when you think about what's going on in TvT and PvP these days. In other news, everyone was surprised to see Nada dropping so many games to foreigners, eventually being eliminated by Mana. Surprised, and excited! The crowd always gave it up when someone beat Nada. It's nothing against Nada personally, but everyone outside Korea just wants to see foreigners do well against Koreans. In summary, a great tournament. A long deserving veteran finally got his championship, while up and coming players got to prove themselves to a big audience. Couldn't ask for much more.
mTw.DIMAGA mini-InterviewBy: WaxAngelA week after Assembly, I caught up with Dimaga for a brief chat session before he departed for Gamescom. Due to the nature of the conversation, it's mostly unedited.![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/dimagachamp.jpg) You've always been considered one of the best players since Beta, but didn't have a championship at a big live event until Assembly. How did you feel after you won?I'm so happy it's hard to describe this feeling  . It's just all good feeling in one time  What was going through your mind when you were down 0-2 in the finals? What did you do mentally to come back and win 3-2?I just think about next map and next game. Cause if you start think about something else it will be bad for you. Did it help a lot that some of your fellow Ukrainians were at the tournament to talk to?Yea sure but when you sitting at huge stage you need to think only about game ^^. I want to say its all about yourself. It's you playing not someone else . But sure after games and before game we make some jokes and its pretty nice In the semi-finals, Stephano used some interesting rush strategies against you. Were you surprised?Not really cause he used it before our match versus Sen. How do you feel about being only Zerg to beat Nestea in ZvZ on TV?:D:D:D im really proud of it Ukraine vs Sweden, 5v5 GSTL style. Who wins, what score?Ohhhh very very hard question cause i think Sweden and Ukraine 2 the best team right now in Europe . If you you had to pick one?Sure Ukraine :D:D:D You all kill?Easy xDDDDDDDDDDDDDD A lot of American fans would love to see you live, do you plan to do MLG this year, or maybe next?I'm not sure about MLG tt maybe some another tourney Not many other live tourneys, besides maybe NASL or TSL final (*crosses fingers*)?Yeap i will try to do both or all 3 :D Any last comments, shout outs, or thank yous?Yea sure want to thx to me team mTw for supporting me and to all our sponsors. And sure to all Fans of StarCraft2 keep cheering for this game !!!!
On Sportsmanshipby: WaxAngelIntroduction for those of you who don't know the story: Brat_OK and Stephano had been placed into the same RO32 group, and had both confirmed their RO16 tournament qualification at 2-0 each. Going into their final group game against each other, there was nothing to play for except for 1st/2nd place.
However, instead of being a random draw, the RO16 tournament bracket at Assembly was arranged so that players from predetermined groups would face each other in the RO16. For Stephano and Brat_OK in Group F (Stephano, Brat_OK, biGs, Satiinni) that meant taking on Group C (Naama, Sen, Sarens, Protosser). In addition, the groups were not even played at the same time, with Group C's #1 and #2 being determined as Sarens and Sen respectively, far before Group F even began.
The result was that Brat_OK and Stephano ended up actually trying to lose against each other in their series, so as to avoid Sen in the RO16. They achieved this through the use of ridiculous tactics, which grew even more absurd when they realized that they both had the same plan in mind. Eventually, Brat_OK "lost" the series because he happened to leave the game faster in the deciding game.Outside the games themselves, the biggest subplot of the weekend was the Stephano vs Brat_OK game-throwing incident. It's a complicated topic to talk about, and one that deserves more than a simple treatment here. But there are a few short things I would like to say. Keep in mind, these are purely my opinions. There is no question that it was unprofessional and in poor sportsmanship for Brat_OK and Stephano to play extremely poorly with the intention to lose. There is no question that it was incompetent of the tournament organizers for not planning for this easily avoidable situation, and morally dubious that they did not punish the players involved. However, I think that the blame on parties can be shifted to some degree. Professionalism and sportsmanship are ideals everyone would like to aspire to, but sadly ideals don't put food on the table. Sure, ESPORTS still shows signs of its amateur, fraternal roots, as in the case of Gimix at MLG Anaheim. On the other hand, you can't help but feel that ESPORTS is hurtling headlong towards being ruled by ruthless capitalism, just like every other sport that has money in it. I've yet to see a tournament with a sportsmanship prize (worth more than a pittance), while character is usually the least influential factor when a team decides a player's salary. Neither player, nor team, nor tournament is intrinsically drawn to following loftier ideas. In the end, it falls to the fans. As the end consumers of ESPORTS, the fans can ultimately decide what the producers - the players, the teams, and the organizers - consider to be important. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the minor commotion at Assembly speaks to the largely indifferent attitude of the fan community. Obviously we care enough about something as major as the Brood War match fixing scandal that GomTV feels compelled to uphold a ban upon them. But the Combat-Ex's of the world go untouched, SelecT is free to rush battlecruisers in a much anticipated match with MC after clinching a grand final berth, and Stephano can go offensive hatchery in a tournament game. There are a few voices of outrage, but overall, the reaction seems to be a resoundingly apathetic "Meh." So, there's where we're at. Where should we take it from here? Thanks to Bumblebee, Jimlloyd, and Nazgul for discussing this matter with me and giving me more perspectives.
Photographs & Videosby: Grnp
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Dimaga tottaly deserved to win, people said he was fading away he proved them wrong
I started to wonder what happend, about time for a nice write up <3 read it all im a fast reader
Would of love to see Combat Ex cheating in this tournament lol :D
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Dimaga deserved that win, because he played extremely well, and as always TL has an amazing wrap-up of the tourney.
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soo many pictures O.O Great article. Brat_OK vs Stephano was pretty hilarious imo ;D
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The individual tournys should decide on such rules, as GOM has done. Unless we want to go bigger, like most professional sports leagues... but that could be a ways away. Not saying it's better for Esports in terms of growth (I think it might hurt it?), but...
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United Kingdom2950 Posts
Great write-up. Happy for Dimaga but sad that he doesn't really have plans to go to a MLG this year...  Nice little opinion piece on the Brat_OK/Stephano incident, and to an extent I think it's fairly ambiguous on how situations like those can be handled since there is a multitude of things surrounding each scenario.
Look at NASL and how nearing the end of it's round robin, some players that were 100% certain to be knocked out, just played random games with weird tactics. There wasn't much of an outcry then, mainly because the games were somewhat entertaining and I think the affect was downplayed a lot more than it was in the Assembly situation.
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You all kill?
Easy xDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
<3
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lololoolol stephano vs BratOK now that is a series i have to watch!
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Regarding Sportsmanship, shit like this wouldn't happen if there was nothing to gain from losing.
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I looove Dimaga so much (I'd marry him if I got the chance [no homo]) he's really underrated (despite tearing GSL world championship a new one, until San came along TT) and it's so cool he finally got a big tourney win. He looks impressive in every tourney he joins, so it's only fitting he finally takes home a win like this.
Also, the Stephano Brat_OK thing was silly and weird... Yeah I dunno what to say about that.
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Dimaga deserved this sooo hard, I'm glad he finally won a big championship
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so i read all of it and unless i missed something, I didnt see anywhere regarding who dimaga beat in the finals...would like to know thx
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players should always aim to advance as far into the tournament as they can, the tournaments acknowledge that by distributing the prize money according to that. that something ridiculous as this should not happen is a job of the tournament organizers.
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United Kingdom1679 Posts
You know, dress it up how you want (and people will), but trying to throw a game in any sport, any tournament, is one of the most shameless displays of a lack of sportsmanship that there is.
People will say "Uhhh, so ignorant you have never been in their position", but I have been in a similar one on an arguably more significant stage in sports. Did I intentionally play like shit? No, I played one of the best games of my life, because I had my own standards to uphold, and I was there not only to achieve, but because I loved to play.
Match throwing is ludicrous, no matter when, no excuses. I can't believe that the SC2 "community" (good luck in a community with no sense of what's right in a competitive scenario), is so resoundingly blazé about the whole thing. That is also frankly shameful. Wanna get taken seriously as a form of competition, you need to act with principal, and pride in your own damn "esport".
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About the Stephano-Bratok match, I honestly don't see where you can blame their sportsmanship here. When you play a tournament, you must do your best to win it (within its rules ofc), it shows how you respect the tournament and the other players involved in it. It's what sportsmanship is for me. And in this situation, the best chance for winning the tournament meant losing the game. It's actually a pretty tough situation to put the players into and at least they provided us with some fun games, though not competitive.
It's pretty poor ofc, but it's the fault of the tournament format, not the players. Not to put too much blame on the organizers, they probably didn't see such situations coming, but I hope that they and all other organizers will know and avoid such things in the future.
To see this another way, what if the players had played these games seemingly normally, but one of them, more clever than the other, would have made some mistakes, subtle enough not to be seen as voluntary, to ensure that he lost ? Nobody would have seen it and sportsmanship of both players would have been praised (with maybe suspicions from some viewers), but would it have been better for the tournament ? At least they were honest and didn't try to conceal what they were doing.
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United Kingdom1679 Posts
On August 16 2011 18:25 alda wrote:
About the Stephano-Bratok match, I honestly don't see where you can blame their sportsmanship here. When you play a tournament, you must do your best to win it (within its rules ofc), it shows how you respect the tournament and the other players involved in it. It's what sportsmanship is for me. And in this situation, the best chance for winning the tournament meant losing the game. It's actually a pretty tough situation to put the players into and at least they provided us with some fun games, though not competitive.
It's pretty poor ofc, but it's the fault of the tournament format, not the players. Not to put too much blame on the organizers, they probably didn't see such situations coming, but I hope that they and all other organizers will know and avoid such things in the future.
To see this another way, what if the players had played these games seemingly normally, but one of them, more clever than the other, would have made some mistakes, subtle enough not to be seen as voluntary, to ensure that he lost ? Nobody would have seen it and sportsmanship of both players would have been praised (with maybe suspicions from some viewers), but would it have been better for the tournament ? At least they were honest and didn't try to conceal what they were doing.
I'm glad I pre-shot down posts like this, showing a mind-blowing tolerance of borderline cheating.
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It's not cheating at all and we just have different definitions of what sportsmanship is, that's all.
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To be honest, where there is room to cheat, it be e-sports or the tour de france, cheating will be done. Talking about the honor, sportmanship or respect of a player is all good in a perfect world, but the fact is that quite a lot of ANY very competitive participant of ANYTHING seem very prone to cheat if the possibility is there.
The tournament should be planned in such a way that "cheating" for easier positions should not be possible - end of story.
If sportmanship was common we would not need WADA. (world anti-doping assosication)
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Dimaga deserved that, hes awesome do hope he wins a lot more in 2011!!! Dimaga Rocks!!! Such a nice guy too!!!
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awesome article - nice to read
well done dima ;P
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The Stephano-Bratok thing is a bit of a non issue given that he can be so easily prevented by a minor tweak in tournament formats. I think people ought to just see it as a learning experience that gave us some of the most watchable games of the tournament. Its not as if we were robbed of entertainment, it was great!
Also as a proud "white dude" I think this recap needs a section about how players not based in Korea and sen actually did good for once!
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The Stephano vs BratOK was pretty fun but pretty pathetic too imo. When they played seriously for the third place, we saw which one was the best in this matchup.
Randomize brackets so that #1 in pools play #2 but without knowing actually from which group is a much better system.
DIMAGA <3 ! I'm so happy he finally gets a title in a major tournament.
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I can see myself in the crowd 
Gratz to Dimaga.
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Worth mentioning how much the europeans owned nada and Sen while eight of the best of Europe were at the blizzard invitational. Representin'!
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Im so proud to be a member of TL with great info posts like this all the time.
We have the best community by far!
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Stephano - BratOk Group series was one of the most funny things i have seen in sc2, i was laughing so hard. The biggest blame would be on The organizers for giving the play-off match ups before hand.
As for the unprofessional part I have to kindly disagree. For every competition you want to go further and be in a favourable position to go even further. In real sports i have seen many occasions where this happened and 99% of it goes unpunished. This WOULD BE Cheating and of course be unprofessional IF BEFORE HAND deals were made that X player will lose against Y which wasnt the case. Btw Sen did lose against Stephano in a crazy bo3.
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I see no problem with the Stephano-BratOK thing. It's fair to do so in this case~
anyway, great job Dimaga ! I want to see you win more !
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For some organizer perspective on the BratOK/Stephano situation:
What happened was a sum of several small things going a certain way. Had we had the ability to run the tournament as it was originally planned, the situation would never have had a real opportunity to arise. As it did anyway, the only thing to do was to deal with it instead of worrying about what-ifs. Needless to say a situation such as this will never happen again at Assembly and with the fuss it has caused, probably not anywhere else either.
About punishment for the players involved, the matter was given a great deal of thought at the time and the bottom line was that the only concrete punishment (should some be dealt) that would have made sense from the perspective of the rules, fairness and professionalism, would have been to disqualify both players from the tournament. Now, as I'm sure most will agree, this course of action has a great many problems with it as well and so the decision was made to let the technical game result stand with warnings to both players against similar action.
Here's the (somewhat similar to this post) original LR response at the time for those interested, with some discussion about an improved bracket drawing format other than pure "group winner vs group second" randomization that most seem to suggest (it has its own share of problems).
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big dimaga fan since early beta, he s one of the only players i try to imitate, i watch a lot of vods and reps and coachings of pros, but Dimaga s playstyle is my favorite.
Btw his ban on TL events has expired finally, right?
btw game-throwin happens if the system allows it. MLGs system doesnt allow it. I remember at WCGs it was quite common to lose on purpose to avoid Koreans, even Koreans did to avoid each other till the end, nobody was banned for it afair
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On August 16 2011 19:20 Silu wrote:For some organizer perspective on the BratOK/Stephano situation: What happened was a sum of several small things going a certain way. Had we had the ability to run the tournament as it was originally planned, the situation would never have had a real opportunity to arise. As it did anyway, the only thing to do was to deal with it instead of worrying about what-ifs. Needless to say a situation such as this will never happen again at Assembly and with the fuss it has caused, probably not anywhere else either. About punishment for the players involved, the matter was given a great deal of thought at the time and the bottom line was that the only concrete punishment (should some be dealt) that would have made sense from the perspective of the rules, fairness and professionalism, would have been to disqualify both players from the tournament. Now, as I'm sure most will agree, this course of action has a great many problems with it as well and so the decision was made to let the technical game result stand with warnings to both players against similar action. Here's the (somewhat similar to this post) original LR response at the time for those interested, with some discussion about an improved bracket drawing format other than pure "group winner vs group second" randomization that most seem to suggest (it has its own share of problems).
The tournament structure is good but you just shouldn't have announced before hand that Group X Spot 1 goes against Group Y Spot 2. If this was left unannounced this would never have happened. Everything Else was arranged pretty awesome and it was fun to watch. It was just that the Finals Stream was with some weird BZZZZZZ sound and greyish vid quality..... clearly the stage stream wasnt tested which made the viewing experience pretty bad just for the finals. The normal stream was pretty good so i would give a 7/10 for the event itself and a 10/10 for entertaining games.
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About Stephano - BratOK: I think tournaments should try to never put players in a position like this. I totally don't blame the players for trying to get the easiest path to win, that is their job. So I really hope all future tournaments notice that this system doesn't work and brackets past group matches have to be random (with first of group vs second of another group of course ).
Top 3 this tournament totally deserved it, I was very happy with the results.
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There are two ways of looking at the Brat_OK vs. Stephano match
The first is the perspective of the tournament organizers, they want every match to be a good match in that each player is going to try their best to win in all of the respective games and make them competitive and draw the attention of the viewers.
The other is from the players perspective, when it comes down to it its not about sportsmanship respect etc, as stated there is no real reward for this other than a pat on the back, but what it really comes down to is money, and how much they get so that they will be able to make a living, and obviously they felt the best way to advance further in the tournament to earn more money is by losing to avoid Sen.
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On August 16 2011 18:21 ImbaTosS wrote:
You know, dress it up how you want (and people will), but trying to throw a game in any sport, any tournament, is one of the most shameless displays of a lack of sportsmanship that there is.
People will say "Uhhh, so ignorant you have never been in their position", but I have been in a similar one on an arguably more significant stage in sports. Did I intentionally play like shit? No, I played one of the best games of my life, because I had my own standards to uphold, and I was there not only to achieve, but because I loved to play.
Match throwing is ludicrous, no matter when, no excuses. I can't believe that the SC2 "community" (good luck in a community with no sense of what's right in a competitive scenario), is so resoundingly blazé about the whole thing. That is also frankly shameful. Wanna get taken seriously as a form of competition, you need to act with principal, and pride in your own damn "esport".
Teams tank in the NBA all the time for better draft picks. SC players aren't the only people in the world throwing games.
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While I found most of this "tournament review" interesting and informative I personally feel that the "On Sportsmanship" section of the article is poorly conceived and written.
"On Sportsmanship" in my opinion starts out well by outlining the interesting situation which occurred at Assembly in regards to tournament organisation/sportsmanship. These first three paragraphs are as Waxangel says an "Introduction for those of you who don't know the story".
What I don't understand is why we (the readers) are then promptly told in paragraph 4:
"Outside the games themselves, the biggest subplot of the weekend was the Stephano vs Brat_OK game-throwing incident. It's a complicated topic to talk about, and one that deserves more than a simple treatment here. But there are a few short things I would like to say. Keep in mind, these are purely my opinions."
Did the article just get a blue screen of death and reboot itself...? Were we not introduced to the situation between Stephano and Brat_OK in the first three paragraphs to let people understand what occurred and enable the writer to discuss "On Sportsmanship"?
Needless to say this is where I get confused by the writers intentions and direction for the article as suddenly we (the readers) are told that the topic is too complex and cannot be given justice in this column. Yet he has "a few short things" to say on the topic just as long as we keep in mind they are his opinions.
Wait...What....Lets go over this again....
1. -So the article is about "On Sportsmanship"...
2. -Situation which occurred at Assembly explained.
3. -Topic is too complex to talk about and deserves more than this simple article.
4. -Then proceed to give us a brief one sided opinion piece?
I cannot be the only person who thinks this makes no sense...
The lack of continuity and depth in WaxAngel's "opinion article" made me only ask one question:
"What part of this article actually questions Sportsmanship" ?
The answer to which I think you can decide!
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On August 16 2011 19:35 HaRxTears wrote:
The tournament structure is good but you just shouldn't have announced before hand that Group X Spot 1 goes against Group Y Spot 2. If this was left unannounced this would never have happened.
Yes, this is precisely what I brought up in the LR as well. As noted there the only problem with that is that the method is not transparent and could be vulnerable to internal abuse, but clearly this is a smaller evil than the one used or making completely random draws (think 4 clear winner candidates over the rest, all end up in the same side of a single elimination bracket).
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United Kingdom1679 Posts
On August 16 2011 19:52 ItsMeDomLee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 18:21 ImbaTosS wrote:
You know, dress it up how you want (and people will), but trying to throw a game in any sport, any tournament, is one of the most shameless displays of a lack of sportsmanship that there is.
People will say "Uhhh, so ignorant you have never been in their position", but I have been in a similar one on an arguably more significant stage in sports. Did I intentionally play like shit? No, I played one of the best games of my life, because I had my own standards to uphold, and I was there not only to achieve, but because I loved to play.
Match throwing is ludicrous, no matter when, no excuses. I can't believe that the SC2 "community" (good luck in a community with no sense of what's right in a competitive scenario), is so resoundingly blazé about the whole thing. That is also frankly shameful. Wanna get taken seriously as a form of competition, you need to act with principal, and pride in your own damn "esport". Teams tank in the NBA all the time for better draft picks. SC players aren't the only people in the world throwing games.
I think you probably already know that's an obtuse argument with no merit, but threw it out there anyway. To suggest that something wrong is OK just because other people do it is not only pretty morally ambiguous, but we all learn as soon as we can be taught that it is a very misguided way of thinking. You want a new, and arguably more personal form of sport to be corrupted in a similar way to others? There are huge problems with current models of how many sports are operated, and it's no secret.
But you probably knew this before you posted. I suppose it's true- you make a case against something, and the more right you are the more likely people are to deny your point with terminal intensity, in any way they can. I didn't mean to threaten your ideals of gaming/sports, but I can't think why else you would pose a clearly fundamentally false argument against the points which I raised.
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Dimaga showed excellent play. He deserved the win. Thx for interview Wax.
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There was nothing wrong with what stephano/bratok did. I'd say bratok "started" it, since I understood stephano actually tried to play decently in g1. Punishing stephano in this situation would be the most retarded solution available. But you can't put bratok as villain either, since it was reasonable to not be interested in playing Sen.
It's so rare for this to occur, that it's understandable organization may have forgot this possibility. Indeed it should not be visible what groups play each others until all groups have played, but when games are already being played they notice this, there's nothing you can do really. Punishing players for own small mistake doesn't make sense.
I'd think this could become very hot topic if only one player clearly gave games away. Then the other player would ask for him to be disqualified, and there could be real shitstorm ahead.
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Stephano vs BratOk was the funniest series I've ever seen, they put on a good show, which is what SC2 is about.
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On August 16 2011 17:40 Wunder wrote:Great write-up. Happy for Dimaga but sad that he doesn't really have plans to go to a MLG this year... Nice little opinion piece on the Brat_OK/Stephano incident, and to an extent I think it's fairly ambiguous on how situations like those can be handled since there is a multitude of things surrounding each scenario. Look at NASL and how nearing the end of it's round robin, some players that were 100% certain to be knocked out, just played random games with weird tactics. There wasn't much of an outcry then, mainly because the games were somewhat entertaining and I think the affect was downplayed a lot more than it was in the Assembly situation.
mlg you have to fight trough an epic hard open bracket and even with managing it you will meet koreans and then fall out before can secure a place in top4 so next time you have to do the open bracket AGAIn
since so many koreans in MLG its just not worth the amount of time and plessure for that little chance and its also not enough money i think ^^ mlg pricepool is way to little for be worth that fight for someone who can make same amount of money easier (ofc if you in poolplay you done ^^ but its hard to get in)
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Stephano didn't throw the first game ... look the series. Stephano only started to play as silly as Bratok when he saw what BratOK did in the first game. Please correct this in the main article, Stephano never had the intention to lose, he knew bratok was going to leave before him, if he really wanted to lose he could have left in the 3rd game and he didn't. His manager even told him to "be fair" and to not throw the games and that's what he did, he just played around a little because it was fun. He then went on to beat Sen.
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I can't understand blaming tournament before players. If you are indeed saying tournaments should do something about it, then you are already implying the players are doing something wrong. The moral mistake is on the players, the logistic mistake on the tournament. In my eyes lack of morals are always worse than lack of logistics.
I hope we all live and learn from this. Players and tournament a-like.
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On August 16 2011 21:31 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I can't understand blaming tournament before players. If you are indeed saying tournaments should do something about it, then you are already implying the players are doing something wrong. The moral mistake is on the players, the logistic mistake on the tournament. In my eyes lack of morals are always worse than lack of logistics.
I hope we all live and learn from this. Players and tournament a-like.
No, we all agree that the situation in itself was bad, not that the players did something amoral. There goes the subjectivity in what is moral and what is not. In fact, even if they played normally, the situation would not have been perfect either cos people could still have suspicions of one player not playing to his maximum.
But this little thing should not detract us from the fact that this was a great tournament
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The players aren't there to battle dubious moral dilemmas of whether to "play fair" or to get a better chance to go farther, they are there to play Starcraft. The tournament is at fault for allowing the existence of this situation.
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On August 16 2011 22:06 poundcakes wrote:
The players aren't there to battle dubious moral dilemmas of whether to "play fair" or to get a better chance to go farther, they are there to play Starcraft. The tournament is at fault for allowing the existence of this situation.
That's the problem they should.
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im sorry but you do what you have to win after all it is there job and its in there nature to do what they have to win the entire thing not every single match
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I seriously think that youtupe clip right after the match its simply some of the best thing i ever seen in Esport. Dimaga going crazy and then right after Dimaga and MaNa give eachother a big hug.
So amasing to see
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Btw what stephano and bratok did is not cheating we see that in the worldcup all the time where you know which opponent you will face if you become 2nd or 1st.
Alot of teams send out there benchplayers etc.
I dont regard it as cheating or poor sportmanship its just how it is and frankly its only esport nerds that can make a big deal out of it:D
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 16 2011 18:28 ImbaTosS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 18:25 alda wrote:
About the Stephano-Bratok match, I honestly don't see where you can blame their sportsmanship here. When you play a tournament, you must do your best to win it (within its rules ofc), it shows how you respect the tournament and the other players involved in it. It's what sportsmanship is for me. And in this situation, the best chance for winning the tournament meant losing the game. It's actually a pretty tough situation to put the players into and at least they provided us with some fun games, though not competitive.
It's pretty poor ofc, but it's the fault of the tournament format, not the players. Not to put too much blame on the organizers, they probably didn't see such situations coming, but I hope that they and all other organizers will know and avoid such things in the future.
To see this another way, what if the players had played these games seemingly normally, but one of them, more clever than the other, would have made some mistakes, subtle enough not to be seen as voluntary, to ensure that he lost ? Nobody would have seen it and sportsmanship of both players would have been praised (with maybe suspicions from some viewers), but would it have been better for the tournament ? At least they were honest and didn't try to conceal what they were doing. I'm glad I pre-shot down posts like this, showing a mind-blowing tolerance of borderline cheating.
I can understand the viewpoints of both of you.
On the one hand is the overall goal of winning the tournament and dedicating everything to it, on the other one losing games on purpose is betraying yourself, the tournament and the fans on stream.
The best reaction to this situation in my eyes would have been an agreement of both players with the tournament organizers to put the loser of the match at position one and the winner on spot two. This way both players could have played to their maximum strength and the viewers would have seen a fantastic game.
I think after this the organizers of future tournaments think twice about fixing the playoff tree beforehand.
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On August 16 2011 21:31 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I can't understand blaming tournament before players. If you are indeed saying tournaments should do something about it, then you are already implying the players are doing something wrong. The moral mistake is on the players, the logistic mistake on the tournament. In my eyes lack of morals are always worse than lack of logistics.
I hope we all live and learn from this. Players and tournament a-like.
When you're playing for money there shouldn't be an easy option to 'cheat' though, or somehow get an unfair advantage through the flaws of the setup of the tournament.
I'd agree if it was Combat-Ex setting up his map hack in an online tournament, but in this case I feel like it could've been prevented so easily by the tournament if they had given it some thought.
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It was a good event and I'm gonna go spectate winter assembly also, if the players are as good as in this tournament. Hopefully assembly hosts a big SC tournament then. Gratz to Dimaga. He is awesome
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throwing a match while you are still in group stages is perfectly fine by me. Its the tournaments fault for having you play games that dont improve your posisition if you win. Thats like saying to the players, here we are going to have you play some extra games, hope you arent tired or stressed, make sure to give it your all. Oh and btw, winner and loser both move on.
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On August 16 2011 21:31 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I can't understand blaming tournament before players. If you are indeed saying tournaments should do something about it, then you are already implying the players are doing something wrong. The moral mistake is on the players, the logistic mistake on the tournament. In my eyes lack of morals are always worse than lack of logistics.
I hope we all live and learn from this. Players and tournament a-like.
Some of us don't agree that the players made a moral mistake though. This is much different than the match fixing scandal. The match fixing involves a pre-determined desire to throw games to be able to win money. All of this relatively unrelated to the tournament at hand.
The Assembly situation is coincidental. If Sen had been first in his group, then both players would have played their best so as to avoid Sen again. The intention is the same, yet we would praise one while we demonize the other? That makes no sense to me. What makes sense is to say that the desire to go farther in the tournament, to create mental momentum by acquiring more wins before facing tougher opponents, is a valid perspective for a player to have.
People are blaming the tournaments because they did not foresee this situation occurring. I blame the tournaments because they were planning on disqualifying these players at all. This is not cheating, and the only way they really know this happened is because the players basically admitted that they did not want to face Sen. Why should the players be at fault for wanting to get farther in a tournament while adhering to the tournament rules?
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First White Ra, now Dimaga? The vets are finally starting to take their wins in.
Not White Ra's first, but its been a while for him.
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Lets face it, I wouldn't want to face Sen in the ro16 either, especially if there's money on the line.
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That's an interesting dilemma for Stephano and BratOK but I can't really blame them. I think a lot of people would have done the same in their situation to be honest.
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This tournament was awesome, was so happy for Dimaga. He was soooooooo pumped when he won, glad to see such emotion :D
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Haha, that dimaga interview was just classic DIMAGA! :D So happy all the time! TT___TT No mlg? I hope that mTw would be able to send him if he wanted to go.. Isnt DIMAGA the only player beside Naruto or something?
Anyway, gratz to dima, will always cheer you on !! :D
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Best thing about Assembly Summer 2011? Getting players to sign my mousepad.
![[image loading]](http://img.ie/ab14b.jpg)
Big thanks to everyone who signed it, especially Sen who was the first to sign it and opened the pen used to sign it. It was stuck very tightly and I tried to get it off in hurry and he just said "Give it to me, I'm strong" and popped the cap off instantly, pro skills.
I would have liked to catch more people to meet and sign it but there is always the next time!
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Russian Federation1849 Posts
I didn't watch the event, but reading this and finding out about the Stephano vs Brat_OK incident was a lot of fun.
Also, congratz Dima!
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lol, when did this tourney happen, i didnt follow it at all :3
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Good article and while it may not change the face of esports for my part I will not root for stephano or bratok going forward after that. Will I say they are unethical evil men? No. Will I cheer for someone that isnt known to try and throw matches in a tournie against them? Yes.
More importantly to me though Dimaga GRIN!! I caught the final of this before sleep took me and I stayed up just to watch him grinning all over the stage as he got his cup and check. GG Dimaga XD
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I can't blame a player doing everything they can to win the tournament. Even though it's not good sportsmanship. I would place all of the blame for that entire situation on the organizers tbh, designing a tournament system where this could happen is just silly.
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On August 17 2011 20:58 Synwave wrote:
Good article and while it may not change the face of esports for my part I will not root for stephano or bratok going forward after that. Will I say they are unethical evil men? No. Will I cheer for someone that isnt known to try and throw matches in a tournie against them? Yes.
More importantly to me though Dimaga GRIN!! I caught the final of this before sleep took me and I stayed up just to watch him grinning all over the stage as he got his cup and check. GG Dimaga XD
you would be suprised how well known and situated players did the same thing (top Koreans).
Now, let say Bratok didnt openly show he wanted to lose the series instead he would secretly mismicroe few units etc. We wouldnt know that it happened. Would it be better?
At least they had balls to show it to everyone, and by that they kinda cleared themselves. Why? do you ask, they fucking enabled themselfs to be judged! Its like thief knowing that hes doing bad so he steals while being watched by police.
Organizers knew that they made a terrible mistake so they didnt punish them. It is unthinkable that in competetive environment someone would encourage players to throw away games.
Im just saying that we cannot be sure whats been in their head, the situation was unusual, and after subconscious desire not to win Because you already know that losing is optional even if you force yourself to win the game to play "properly" you start to be a fake, because you really want to lose if u care about tournament. At least they werent faking it and showed us openly. Its deeper than simple morality.
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ASUS ROG Assembly Summer
