Blizzard hasn’t had any luck with players lately. When he’s not frustrating fans of his iconic series, he’s upsetting esports gamers with controversial tournament decisions.
Blizzard Entertainment has already pissed off fans of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch. To this list we can now add esports teams that compete in the latter.
During this year’s tournament Overwatch Contenders series there was a “strike” of players representing the teams 01 Esports and Ex Oblivione. After taking their seats, the de facto players didn’t play (if you don’t count the two Torbjorns bumping into each other), ignoring the mission objectives and extending the match indefinitely, despite warnings from the Blizzard referees.
“Overwatch Contenders is the international Overwatch league organized by Blizzard. The goal of the series is to seek out talented players to give them a chance to prove themselves and gain the attention of talent scouts who recruit to compete in the Overwatch League (hence the name).
tournament misinformation
The protest took place in response to a controversial situation that occurred while he was still in the winner’s bracket.
On July 27, the day before the matchup between Munich eSports and 01 Esports, Jacob “choose” Bronder (the Polish-German representative of the Munich team) wrote to the Overwatch Contenders organizers regarding Blizzard’s strange decision. Good, Players were informed that the match would be played in a best of 7 format, bo7 for short, which means that the team that wins four games is the winner.
the problem is that According to the current tournament rules, the finals of group a. winners finals it must be played in a “best of five” (bo5) format. Only in the grand finals would players have to play up to four wins. Additionally, players initially received conflicting information from administrators (video input from Kevin “Kevh” Hondijk of the Ex Oblivione team).
However, choose received final confirmation from one of the administrators that the best-of-seven format would be used in the match against 01 Esports. The opposing team received similar information.
Fuente: Timber «tap top» Rensen and Twitter.
Rollback: Denied
The beginning of the clash was very unfavorable for 01 Esports. The first three duels ended in favor of the opponents, but on the next two maps the team managed to defeat the Munich eSports players, thus gaining the opportunity to turn the situation around (which is always an exciting situation for the viewers).
In this point Overwatch Contenders admins stepped in, abruptly announcing that the match had ended in favor of Munich eSports. The reason? The duel should have been played in a “best of five” format.
The “bo7” information on the website was a “typo” and the organizers had trouble contacting the lead admin (via Dot Esports). As a result, the other admins had to answer player questions and make tournament decisions on their own. Hence all the confusion.
The fury of the players…
It is easy to imagine the frustration of the Saudi Arabian team. The difference between playing with three and four wins is not just a question of the physical condition of the player. In competitions (not just Overwatch), participants can play differently depending on the number of games needed to win the match, for example putting their opponents’ alertness to sleep and testing their habits to suddenly apply a new strategy.
Anyway, there is no need to imagine anything. A recording of a conversation between players and the head admin has hit the web, It is true that it is no longer available on YouTube, but it was also uploaded to Streamable. To say that the players were frustrated would be an understatement.
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…and trending on Twitter
Players vented their anger on social media, including Timber “kraandop” Rensen, who tweeted a screenshot of Choose’s conversation with an admin on Discord. He also pointed out that the mention of the “bo7” format Was seen also on the tournament page at GameBattles (although the information had already been changed there).
Viewers also joined the protest, expressing their outrage using the hashtag #ContenderStrike on Twitter (where the action was trending for some time) and in broadcast chat during the Munich eSports “strike” and Ex Oblivione. The latter team also released a statement expressing their outrage at Blizzard’s decision and the company’s outrageous communication with players.
Source: Out of Oblivion en Twitter.
Ex Oblivione refused to continue participating in the Overwatch Contenders tournament pending a review of the case
The organizers yield
During the match, the judges initially issued a warning to both protesting teams, even threatening to disqualify them and take away their rewards (via Helv on Gore). Eventually, the broadcast of the tournament was interrupted and the organizers of Overwatch Contenders published apologies and reported that it would be “fairer” to replay the match in a “bo7” format, as the players had been told.
Source: Overwatch Contenders organizers on Twitter.
Munich eSports vs. 01 Esports will take place today (via SPORT1), with the game state being the same as when the match was interrupted: 01 Esports will be in the lead with a score of 3:2 and the decision to pick the next map.
Although this is somehow the optimal solution in this situation, it did not appease the players. Tournament participants believe this situation is further evidence of Blizzard’s lack of communication with players participating in Overwatch Contenders (via The Verge).
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