My issue with Z33k's tournament #9

Oh gosh, super long. Sorry, hopefully you can bear with me.

Hi, the z33k's tourny has been posted on reddit several times, and I know the admin reads reddit, so I felt like this was the most appropriate place to talk about why this tournament was not fun at all for me or my teammates and this has probably affected others too.

A few things you should know before I start, my team is definitely not the greatest, we weren't expecting to win and were just curious to see how far we could get. And in all honestly, the allure of some RP was pretty awesome too.

The tournament started really interestingly for us, we got a bye in the first round, and the second round the opponent forfeited for some reason (they didn't specify a reason, but mentioned that their last guy wasn't on, and with the 50min login wait times that day perhaps their guy wasn't going to login by the starting time for the match. Idk, this is all conjecture, point is they forfeited). THIRD ROUND we also got a bye, because the other two teams whose winner was gonna play us, didn't play. Now by this time it was kind of weird, we got really far in the tournament without playing a single game. Cool we got closer to the RP, but then again we didn't really do anything except be punctual in making the custom game and just wait.

now this is when it started to get frustrating. We waited all day for a game, and our next game was going to be at 4:40 according to their website. So when 4:40 came around, we made the custom game, and waited for the opponent... and waited... and waited... The rules say:

If no one from your team checks is around for the starting time by:

• 5 minutes of your scheduled game time your team loses 1 ban.

-10 minutes of your scheduled game time your team loses 2 bans.

-15 minutes of your scheduled game time your team is disqualified and your team forfeits the game.

If you do not have a full team of 5 by:

-10 minutes of your scheduled game time your team loses 1 ban.

-15 minutes of your scheduled game time your team is disqualified and your team forfeits the game.

But it wasn't until 20 minutes later, around 5 when someone on the other team finally contacted our team captain. Note this entire time our team captain was talking to the admin, asking what's happening, notifying the admin at 4:40. 4:45, 4:50, 4:55 that no one has contacted him, and he can't find anyone on the other team. So if we just followed the rules, they should have been disqualified by 4:55. Now yeah, it would have been weirder still if we got all the way past 4 rounds without playing a game, and maybe we're the ones at fault, maybe it was wrong of us to get so far without playing a game, maybe because we got so far without doing anything that the rules could be bent, but I felt a little cheated, that rules are rules and the other team should be disqualified.

But the admin didn't say anything, just told us to keep waiting, and what else could we do? We just did. When the other team's member finally messaged us, we invited him to the game along with everyone else he told us to invite. Now besides the time issue, we also noticed something else. The people he was telling us to invite weren't on their roster for their team. 2 of them were, maybe 3? But the two top players on their team weren't on the roster before. Of course we checked out their line-up and their elo rating beforehand. Some of their players were way over our heads, while some were way below, and we discussed how challenging the game would be, and what to do against the champions they frequently play. But now they were all way above us. And I asked my friend about this, who used to play it the Z33k's tourny but didn't this week. He said that previously they had a game where a team tried to use a ringer, and they almost got dq'd for it. They had to switch back to playing on the account that registered under the roster. Now I'm trying to find if there are any specific rules that relate to the roster, but the only one i can find it this:

Substituting players is only allowed if they are on the roster of the team that registered for this particular tournament.

So it seems kind of strange to allow people who aren't on your roster to play on your team, but if you get a substitute they have to be on the roster beforehand. Still, I can't find any specific rule on their website about it, so maybe this applies, maybe it doesn't? I think it does, but that just might be me being biased, and I apologize if I am.

Now back to the story, its around 5 o'clock, and we're waiting to start the game. 4 of their team members are on and we're waiting for the fifth... and waiting... and waiting again. At 5:10 we ask the admin what's happening, and he tells us the other team loses 1 ban. This is for a game that should have started half an hour ago, and remember the 1 ban rule applies at 5 minutes after the deadline. We keep on waiting, but we did bother the admin a lot around this time. And then he said to us, the other team "has until 5:17". At 5:15 the other team says the guy is in login queue for another 4 minutes. We can do the math, he's not getting in by 5:17. Here is another thing I need your opinions on. Should that have counted as a dq? or is 2 minutes just not that big enough to matter, that we should out of politeness or out of non-dickishness, let that 2 minutes slide.

It hits 5:17, and he's not on. But the admin gets invited to our game, and we chat with him. We told the other team that the admin says they lost a ban already. They ask the admin for confirmation i guess (If I sound caustic sorry, I'm not trying to bash on the other team, just the tourny. The other team seemed like nice people, they were polite, apologized for the wait, thanked us for waiting, etc.) and the admin said, "in five minutes you lose a ban". Wait a minute. No, he said they already lost a ban, and should have been dq'd by 5:17. But now its not even about waiting those extra two minutes, but they get another 5 before penalties start? This just doesn't make sense to me. Where's the fairness?

Eventually the game starts in those five minutes, around 5:20, and we lost, as expected. We got outplayed, they were in fact better than us, but I must say the sour mood my entire team was in didn't help. We wasted 40 minutes of our time. We've played in this tournament before and they are usually pretty strict about the time rules because they don't want to run late. In fact they encourage starting games early because the schedule already makes the tourny run pretty late.

At the end it looked super suspicious to me, that the rules were bent so much for the team that was expected to win the tournament, the time issue, the roster issue, and to top it all off was the conversation with the admin when he was in the game. We already told the other team what the admin said, but then when asked by them, the admin redacted his statement and extended their time further (so I guess I lied before, I am kind of suspicious of the other team too). Maybe I'm just finding what I'm looking for, and being a biased ass.

Would it have been unfair for us to get past 4 rounds without doing anything? Are we in the right? or are we asking for too much?

Yeah, it's a pretty tall tale and I didn't even craft it to make it more of an enjoyable read. I sorta just wanted to put it all out there, maybe just to find someone to rage with me, or find closure in knowing that we were actually in the wrong. If you read through all of it congrats to you. I award you one Terrorbear Karma, so exclusive and secretive that reddit doesn't even recognize it, but I promise it'll be just as useful as karma, if not more ;) (call me maybe).

tl;dr Other team joins game 40 minutes after the deadline for game start, and the admin doesn't penalize them, he just bends the rules head over heels and shoves them right up our ass.