An Unfortunate Incident

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Hello everyone,

I'd like to begin this post by relaying a GIANT 'Thank you' to all of our fans, supporters, volunteers, and competitors. Without you, the CDL Season I Qualifiers would not have been what they were. You are truly amazing in every way.

I'd like to begin this post with the following quote from Stephen Covey:

"The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too."





An Unfortunate Incident

A recent Code of Conduct violation was brought to our attention yesterday morning. The violation took place on Sunday, October 20th, during Group 5's round robin duels. Shortly after being informed of the violation, I tweeted on my personal twitter page that our Mirror Match Playoffs, which were originally scheduled to take place on Monday the 21st, were to be postponed until Wednesday while our investigation took place. The below includes a summary of the incident, the results of our investigation, and our final conclusion:


The Incident

About 30 minutes into Group 5's duels, what the CDL oversight committee has determined to be a clear display of match-fixing took place. The matchup was between Tmugsy the Warrior and Boomerr the Rogue. Both individuals are from the same guild and have been referred to as Co-GMs. After reviewing the evidence below, we believe that Tmugsy intentionally lost his duels to Boomerr to increase Boomerr's chance of advancing to the CDL Regular Season.



Exhibit A: The Riposte Build is revealed

Prior to the duel between Tmugsy and Boomerr, an earlier duel took place between Boomerr and the Priest Kala. During the duel, Boomerr used the ability Riposte, which is a talent in the Combat tree that deals 150% damage and disarms the target for 6 seconds. Here is a link to the ability for reference: https://classicdb.ch/?spell=14251

In the first duel between Boomerr and Kala, Boomerr used Riposte on Kala and the ability's debuff is clearly displayed over Kala's nameplate. Here is a picture of the debuff on Kala's nameplate for reference: https://imgur.com/a/Y7GVUq3

With the debuff displayed so prominently on stream, a competing dueler would have realized that Boomerr was playing the Riposte build and adjusted accordingly by equipping anti disarm gloves - Tmugsy did not. It is possible that Tmugsy may not have been paying attention to the stream or may have been away from his computer at the time, but this next piece of evidence confirmed that he was well aware of the Riposte build


Exhibit B: Tmugsy confirms he will counter Riposte

Prior to his duel with Boomerr, Tmugsy was informed by an individual that Boomerr was running the Riposte build and advised Tmugsy to wear his disarm gloves. Tmugsy acknowledged the advice and informed the individual that he would in fact equip the gloves, confirming that he had knowledge of Boomerr's disarm potential heading into the duel. This exchange can be referenced here: https://imgur.com/a/lRZy4cy

We confirmed that Tmugsy did have his Death Grips in his inventory, yet despite that fact, did not equip them in the duel with Boomerr, resulting in a long duration disarm that prevented him from dealing damage and eventually, a loss for him and a win for Boomerr.

The evidence does not stop there.


Exhibit C: Duel #2's 'Net' Incident

The second piece of evidence stems from Duel #2 between the two competitors. In this duel, Tmugsy is netted for nearly 20 seconds. Despite not being affected with damage ticking debuffs and despite his opponent sitting down to eat, Tmugsy does nothing during this time. He could have bandaged back up, used Demoralizing shout to keep his opponent in combat, swapped to sword & board in anticipation of the cheap shot, ate to recover, etc. Instead, he just stands there doing nothing. This lack of action was puzzling to say the least and caught the attention of several casters during the duel. You can watch the casters' reaction to the play here:

https://clips.twitch.tv/PleasantMotionlessBeefTinyFace

This inaction alone, while suspicious, was not enough to definitively prove that match fixing had been taking place. After all, Tmugsy may have been nervous and misplayed as a result. However, when we examined Boomerr's PoV for clarity, we noticed a very odd exchange between the two duelers. You can watch the exchange here:

https://clips.twitch.tv/CoweringCuteFinchGrammarKing

In the clip, we see that Tmugsy is netted and Boomerr goes for the stealth/reset/eat play. While Boomerr is eating, he strangely tells Tmusgy, "Yo, shout me out of stealth, Tim", to which Tmugsy replies "Shhhh".

Why would a competitor give his opponent in a duel advice on how to beat him? Furthermore, why would the opponent quietly shush the competitor as the advice was given? When looking at all the evidence together, it became quite clear what was happening - Tmugsy was throwing the matches to his guildie.


The Rules

The following paragraph is stated in the CHEATING section of the CDL Rules, Regulations, and Code of Conduct:

All CDL participants and competitors are expected to compete in a fair and honorable manner. Methods of cheating, such as account sharing, match-fixing, stream-sniping, duel disruption, client-side abuse, hacking, exploiting, or the use of banned items or strategies listed in this document are forbidden. If a CDL competitor or participant is found cheating, punishments may include match forfeiture, disqualification, forfeit of prize money, temporary suspension, or permanent ban from all CDL events.

In order to protect the integrity of CDL and its competitors, as well as prevent a culture of dishonesty from poisoning the League, the below decision was made.


The CDL's Decision

When this issue was first brought up to me, it was clear that I could not be the one to solely decide the fate of our competitors. Tmugsy and I are friends, and I could not allow myself to control the judgement process with an inherent bias. As a result, the CDL has formed an oversight committee designed to judge rule violations in an unbiased manner. After a great deal of deliberation and review, the CDL overight committee's ruling is as follows:

Due to major violations of the CDL Code of Conduct, Tmugsy has been removed from CDL Season I. While Boomerr was present during these conduct violations, there is insufficient evidence to prove that he colluded with Tmugsy in this matter, therefore Boomerr shall not be punished. However, both match points granted to Boomerr for the wins over Tmugsy have been labeled a 'no-contest', with Boomerr now currently sitting at 8 wins. Boomerr will have an opportunity to redo his Warrior duels with a substitute Warrior from the CDL and his new score will be added to his current 8 points.

The duel series between Boomerr and the sub will take place before the Mirror Match Playoffs tomorrow. The Playoffs will begin at 2 PM EST.



I'm going to drop the pseudo-professionalism for a second here and tell you guys how I really feel - this fucking sucks... but we will not allow it to take away from the incredible duels this past week. We're preparing some special announcements for our Mirror Match show tomorrow to guarantee that the CDL Season I Qualifiers go out with a bang. The community deserves that at least.

Love you guys, and sorry for all of the scuffedness this past week. We're working hard to improve every day and give you guys a League that the entire World of Warcraft community can be proud of.


-Tips


P.S. Please do not use this incident or any other to attack, harass, or harm anyone mentioned in this post. We're better than that guys <3.

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