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United States33710 Posts
ESL's Shaun "Apollo" Clark posted the following statement on Reddit:
Okay this took a while to write, sorry for the wall of text but needed.
Firstly, I really apologize for being distant in recent times. Our workload at ESL has been incredibly high and there's been a thousand moving pieces spread across our team as we are try to adapt to a different world. Evidently we haven't been paying enough attention to the details which has led to some strange decisions in recent months. In this post for you, I will cover all important topics that you as a community deserve to have insight into. I will start with our approach around the ESL Pro Tour point allocation, moving into the TakeTV situation, followed by the Super Tournament decision and then our outlook moving forward.
ESL Point Allocation
Firstly, to understand our intent around point allocation, it's important for you to understand our philosophy. Upon launching the ESL Pro Tour we had a very exclusive approach to our point system, prioritizing tournaments with the fairest possible conditions for players with the most equal opportunities. Within the last couple of weeks I spoke to some trusted friends within the SC2 community to discuss how we can start to adapt our philosophy to be more inclusive of other tournaments, cross server play, less ideal conditions etc. Our priority was to keep the ESL Pro Tour the central point of competitive play and an important pillar within the community. With that said, that gives you insight to our approach & intent behind working with TaKe & others around point allocation that would have been more challenging originally.
TakeTV situation
Now with understanding our intent. TakeTV approached us 2 weeks ago for point allocation. Our mistake here was simply oversight, we didn't go into enough detail focusing too much on the intent, we concentrated on the outcome rather than the process. We agreed & communicated to TakeTV ahead of their qualifiers that their tournament would receive points and that the distribution of points would be figured out once we understood their exact format details - once that was done, we communicated their point allocation which then went public almost instantly. I personally didn't even go into detail on the ratio of invite/qualifiers as I was pushing my team to find a solution to make the outcome we wanted, work. We rushed a decision while under pressure elsewhere and I see the consequences now, however I understand our mistake. I'll talk more about how we will fix that, along with other items at the end.
Super Tournament decision
Now to the Super tournament situation earlier this year. This one has a few angles, so bare with me please. Firstly I'll talk on awarding and then removing points & then I'll go into the decision on whether the tournament should have had points or not. Firstly, before any information was made public, we were in a healthy discussion with both Blizzard & AfreecaTV on our thought process and our decision which was that we wouldn't award ST points. Unfortunately we made a mistake to publish an outdated rule book which had an allocation for the ST despite our decision to not allocate. Once our team realized the mistake, we simply uploaded the correct rule book without the allocation and communicated accordingly. This timing and execution was poorly handled and I apologize to all players for this. Now let's talk about why the Super Tournament wasn't allocated points in the first place. At the time of the decision we simply made a mistake, it should have awarded points and I've addressed this internally and moving forward we will ensure mistakes like this don't happen again. However with hindsight the decision is even simpler, the Super Tournament should not have awarded points because it was not communicated to players ahead of qualifiers beginning, this is a critical item for us that players are given notice and will be a requirement for the ESL Pro Tour moving forward.
Outlook moving forward
I think its very clear we need to set some internal & external guidelines on how we need to work together with much better transparency and communication on our decisions. We will be rolling out changes in the next 1-2 weeks to make sure these situations don't happen again. Another piece of information I wanted to leave with you, is that we are working on some adjustments to the ESL Pro Tour and will be releasing information on some revamps in the coming weeks.
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Apollo out here still saving StarCraft, communication is key and it seems like the ESL team understands that and realizes they have been lacking a little bit in some areas and instantly address the issue. This clears up a lot that I was confused about and makes me happy being reminded how much passion and work is getting put into StarCraft right now.
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So EPT points will only be awarded if that is announced before the qualifiers for a tournament, both retroactive (SAHSC and ST1) and going forward? Sounds perfectly fair because before the qualifiers is when players have to decide whether to try to qualify.
Great job ESL and Apollo! We know you’re working hard during these wild times and we appreciate you.
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United States33710 Posts
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info.
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On April 10 2020 05:58 Waxangel wrote:
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info.
They decided in advance there would be no points. Blizzard and Afreeca knew, the players should have known through Afreeca. Only we as fans and viewers couldn't have known (as usual) because it wasn't communicated to us, all we had was an incorrect rulebook. So the players weren't stripped of any points, they weren't meant to receive any in the first place. With that in mind I think it's fine.
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On April 10 2020 05:58 Waxangel wrote:
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info.
Apollo says why: It wasn't communicated to the players before the qualifiers. This is very simple principle. All players should know beforehand exactly what is at stake. 
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On April 10 2020 06:15 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2020 05:58 Waxangel wrote:
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info. They decided in advance there would be no points. Blizzard and Afreeca knew, the players should have known through Afreeca. Only we as fans and viewers couldn't have known (as usual) because it wasn't communicated to us, all we had was an incorrect rulebook. So the players weren't stripped of any points, they weren't meant to receive any in the first place. With that in mind I think it's fine.
Based on the Twitter chatter, some if not all of the players thought there were EPT points on the line, so there was a communication breakdown at the very least.
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I still don't get what issue super tournament has that means it shouldn't have points?
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United States33710 Posts
On April 10 2020 06:20 BaneRiders wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2020 05:58 Waxangel wrote:
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info. Apollo says why: It wasn't communicated to the players before the qualifiers. This is very simple principle. All players should know beforehand exactly what is at stake.
hence my last line 
I understand the technicality the points were removed on, but given the history of the ST always having points, and the other stakes of the super tournament (money, prestige, blah blah) the practical reality is that ESL points probably would have had zero impact on participation (i.e.: There's no player who didn't try to qualify for ST because there were no points announced at the time)
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puck you
User was warned for this post.
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How can a seasoned esport organization fuck this up so badly? The super tournament situation was extremely unprofessional.
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A lack of organization recruitment and team up in ESL is simply unfair to players. April 2020. The season has begun. But the mighty RULE-BOOK was not even updated? What a b*llshit story they have trying to sell us. Obviously a mistake has been made. ESL must give back all points to Super Tournament.
What is the point of organization that can't even do a simple rule-book in the begging of year?
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On April 10 2020 09:10 Morbidius wrote:
How can a seasoned esport organization fuck this up so badly? The super tournament situation was extremely unprofessional.
it was fine, take it easy.
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Let's run an SC2 league. We can......Look, a squirrel!
That pretty much sums up the professionalism of ESL
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It's unfair that Super Tournament players were not awarded ESL points just because they were not notified beforehand. ST is a Premier Tournament.
God-level Korean titans and foreign players in Korea will work hard and die for it winning the ST. The qualifiers alone are stacked and looks like hell.
They treated ST1 as garbage tournament as if it was just a Wood and Paper League that nobody cares about. Yes, we all know it's a mistake, but a despicable one that caused this injustice.
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Y'all need to chill out. Sure ESL made mistakes. But some people are acting as if ESL killed their dog.
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I don't think the right way of fixing the mistake is taking the points away from the players who probably read the rulebook and just practice afterwards, this kind of mistake shouldn't be done. And any change should be told to the public but not just change it and not notify anyone and waiting for people to check the rulebook again.
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Thanks, Shaun!
They made mistakes. Not much to change that.
Simple principle: no points if it wasn't communicated before qualifiers.
Consequently, the ST won't get points.
If the players would have been notified, the ST would have gotten points.
Sad situation, but it is reality. I think the principle is good. Even if it is sad, it is the correct call.
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On April 10 2020 10:00 greyhoundz wrote:
It's unfair that Super Tournament players were not awarded ESL points just because they were not notified beforehand. ST is a Premier Tournament.
God-level Korean titans and foreign players in Korea will work hard and die for it winning the ST. The qualifiers alone are stacked and looks like hell.
They treated ST1 as garbage tournament as if it was just a Wood and Paper League that nobody cares about. Yes, we all know it's a mistake, but a despicable one that caused this injustice.
I think they secretly hate Korean SC.. seriously...
At this point there shouldn't even be a region lock, still coming up with excuses to shit on Koreans..
There isnt ANY good reason why in 2020 the ST gets NO points.
I'm seeing now being in charge of SC2 breeds stupidity..
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On April 10 2020 05:58 Waxangel wrote:
I don't quite get why Super Tournament isn't getting its points back, though, if ESL is admitting that it SHOULD have awarded points. If you can retroactively take them away, it seems simple to retroactively add them back after realizing the error.
I get that TECHNICALLY not announcing points before an event can affect participation, but PRACTICALLY speaking everyone who played in Super Tournament qualifiers was going to have played regardless of the info.
The law is powerless to help you, not to punish you.
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EPT
