Abdallah AlGhifari · @t0ksG
7th Mar 2020 from TwitLonger
MENA CSGO Online Qualifiers - The problem & solution
First of all, congratulations to team Camel Riders for qualifying to the Asian Minor.
Same team also qualified to WESG and I’m happy to see young talented players make it.
Now, Let’s talk about the ESL Rio Middle East Closed Qualifier
The Scenario:
4 invited teams which are:
1) NASR eSports aka team Just Passing By (Based in UAE)
2) Goliath (South Africa – Played qualifier from UAE)
3) Yalla Esports (Levant, North Africa & Czech Republic)
4) Og3od (Played as NASR eSports in this qualifier – Jordan + Albania)
4 qualified teams which are:
5) ATK (South Africa – Played qualifier from UAE)
6) Aequus (Israel)
7) Finest (Israel)
8) Camel Riders (UAE)
Why South Africa played in the Middle East Qualifier?
It is because South Africa didn’t have any qualifier for this Minor and had to make a choice (Or maybe forced) to play in the Middle East Qualifier.
Why did the South African teams travel to Dubai to play the Open and Closed Qualifier?
Team ATK actually came to Dubai 3 weeks ago to first play the Open Qualifier where they had to win to get to the closed Middle East Qualifier.
Their communication with the ESL admins were that the Open Qualifier will be played on Dubai servers.
They asked if the Closed Middle East Qualifier will also be played on Dubai servers, but they got no reply which made team ATK and Goliath assume that the Closed Qualifier will also be played on Dubai servers. Hence, traveling to Dubai to play.
After traveling to Dubai and after playing the Open Qualifier and successfully qualifying to the Closed, the ESL admins then informed the teams that the qualifier will be played on 2 servers: Dubai and EU.
Of course, this caused a lot of stress and confusion amongst the teams, mainly the South Africans who traveled solely to play this qualifier.
The problem:
The first problem was communication. Communication wasn’t clear from the beginning that EU servers would be added to the Closed Qualifier which is mainly the organizers role.
This problem affected mostly the South Africans because they actually traveled to Dubai. Which means they paid for hotel, booked a bootcamp gaming room in a café, flight tickets, visas and expenses for food and transportation. That is a lot of money to pay but they had the confidence, since admins told them it’s Dubai servers, that they can actually qualify and reach the Asian Closed Minor in Rio. So, you can understand the frustration that both South African teams felt after knowing EU servers were added halfway through.
The second problem was adding EU servers.
Incase you didn’t know, the routing in Middle East is quite complicated.
Levant Countries (Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Palestine), North African Countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria) and Israel have good routing to EU (They get an average of 55-80 ping)
GCC Countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar) and Pakistan have bad routing to EU (They get an average ping of 120-150)
Now, there is actually no problem with adding EU servers. The problem was adding them halfway through after communication from ESL admins is that the Closed Qualifier will be on Dubai Servers.
So, what did ESL decide to do as the fairest option?
Since it’s a bo3 Double elimination, ESL decided that this is way the draft works:
* Team A picks 1st map – Team B picks Server (Dubai or EU)
* Team B picks 2nd map – Team A picks Server (Dubai or EU)
* 3rd map – I’m not quite sure if it was a toss or just go with the flow type of system but it was decided that Team A/B chooses which half they want to play on their server while the other team chooses the 2nd half server.
* In case of Overtime, First half on one server – Second half on the other
So, what did this mean?
Aequus, Finest, Yalla Esports, NASR eSports whenever they faced the UAE teams (Just Passing By, Camel Riders, ATK, Goliath) they struggled big time and the results are clear on HLTV as to how the maps went (2-1 - 95% of the time)
Aequus, Finest, Yalla Esports, NASR eSports had 200 ping on Dubai – 60-80 ping on EU
JPB, CR, ATK, Goliath had 10 ping on Dubai – 120-140 ping on EU
So as you can tell, the average ping of using EU servers was fairer and more reasonable than using Dubai servers.
This mainly caused every series to go to 2-1 (The teams were winning the map they had low ping on)
The Final was a BO5 with a 1 map advantage to the team that didn’t drop a map (Camel Riders in this case) which is fair in a bo5.
But the unfair format was that the other 4 maps were: 2 maps on Dubai servers – 2 maps on EU servers.
This clearly favors the UAE team.
This whole split of servers format caused all teams, without an exception, to be toxic and negative towards each other.
There was no fairness in the games. There was no competition. There was no team that dominated the other. There was clear toxicity between the teams.
We actually have no idea if the best team won. All we know and we can clearly see is that the team with the best ping won.
No disrespect to Camel Riders, they did play amazingly throughout this qualifier but them winning doesn’t mean they are the best team in MENA.
The solution:
It is very simple, there are 2 options:
1) Split the MENA Region to 2 and give the Middle East 2 slots to the Asian Closed Minor instead of 1. You can try this format and if both teams did horrible in the Asian Closed Minor, then revert to 1 slot with Option 2.
a. Region 1: Levant, North Africa and Israel (Played on EU servers)
b. Region 2: GCC + Pakistan (Played on Dubai servers)
2) Play the whole qualifier on EU servers. We currently have no solution to ping as there is no certain country that has a data center that gives a good ping to all the Middle East. EU Servers have the fairest average ping and GCC teams or South Africans or Pakistanis can travel to Lebanon or Jordan where they can get 55 to 70 ping and it is not as expensive as traveling to Dubai
Increase the qualified teams to the Asian Minor from 8 to 10.
I believe SEA deserve 2 slots and so does Middle East.
Besides all that, I truly hope that ESL or whoever organizes the next Major, please contact a person that lives and knows about the Middle East and consult him/them to get the best possible solution that is fairest to all the region.
I truly apologize for the long post, but I just had to explain everything, and I hope this gets shared around and reaches the right people.
Thank you,
Abdallah “t0ks.” AlGhifari