[NASTL] FINALS Mouz vs Liquid

Hello! Due to the potential drama that this Grand Finals match may stir up in the community. I feel it is necessary to make a statement regarding the match so that there will be no misunderstanding of the situation. First, I will outline some basic information about the NASTL playoff week. This will hopefully help explain the decision to play the ace match Wednesday morning and that, given the unfortunate circumstances for both teams, was the fairest possible solution.

This problem could have been resolved if both teams had chosen a different player for the ace match - however, neither team was willing to accommodate the other. Therefore, since both were set on using HerO and ThorZaiN, we were left with setting a time that was not ideal for either party.


General Background Information

• We flew in iNcontroL for the week to cast the finals
  
• The studio closed down Wednesday afternoon to install and set up new equipment to get ready for season 3
  
• Therefore, we had a hard deadline of wednesday morning, which teams were notified well in advance
  
• NASTL rules have server changes in order to promote fairness, games are played on all servers: NA, EU, and KR

Info About the match

• Liquid selected HerO as their ace knowing it would be late for him in korea
  
• Mouz selected ThorZaiN as their ace despite the fact that he had other obligations (showmatch vs sheth at the time)
  
• Because of this, Mouz was unable to play the ace when the score was tied 2-2 (Thorzain was playing other games)
  
• Due to delays it was unable to be played on tuesday: Liquid rightly asked to push it back since it was pushing 4am in Korea and the match had yet started. Wednesday morning was the last time available to play
  
• A four hour time window was given, Mouz selected 11am EST to play
  
• I contacted the Redbull LAN staff and they cleared time and space for him to play this match
  
• NASTL rules would have given Liquid server advantage in the ace, but to be more fair, both teams agreed to do server swap in between each game, and the starting server was chosen by coin flip (which Liquid won)
  
• We understand the situation was far from ideal for both parties (thorzain had to play from the red bull tournament, hero had to play at 3am) - but this was literally the last time available to play the match
  
• We believe that this was the best and most fair solution (playing wednesday morning, server changing, coin flip to decide start map) given the circumstances

We never want to see the ace match of a final played in an un-ideal situation for either player, but we were unfortunately working within very defined time slots in order to play. Thank you all for understanding, and apologies to both Mouz and Liquid for the ordeal.

- Xeris