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RTS League strives to provide the community with a friendly, yet competitive league for clans to play the game we all love - Age of Mythology. Every season, we do our best to keep the competition clean and fair. Unfortunately, even though RTS League is a competition with no actual prizes, some individuals and teams still feel some a strange urge to cheat.
Because of past instances of cheating, we actively monitor potential threats to the fair play, and we actively seek out information to confirm or dispel our suspicions. Thanks to that, even though it's not always easy uncovering cheating (as obviously the perpetrators do not want to be caught), we were, unfortunately, able to prove that the current RTSL season has witnessed another case of problematic behavior.
As a little background, last season, reDo was caught smurfing for one team, while registered and already playing for a different team. Prior to that infraction, reDo had already been punished for another separate instance of smurfing. Therefore, the smurfing incident last season (his second) earned reDo a life-time ban from RTS League.
Most of you probably know where this going. The old dog is still up to his tricks. ReDo has been actively playing for a new team this season - Absolads (Lad). After a long-time monitoring, we were able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he is smurfing under the nickname Spacetime. Spacetime (reDo) played in five of Lad's twelve regular season matches, going 4-1. Since reDo is a banned player (and smurfed as well, obviously), each match he participated in should be an administrative loss for Lad. Therefore, Lad's record would not have been good enough to have even made playoffs.
Therefore, Lad's infractions have earned them the following two punishments:
1) Lad has been removed from Season 23's playoffs.
2) Lad has been placed on probation for the following season.
We acknowledge that rest of Lad may have not known Spacetime's true identity – however, it is the clan operator's duty to ensure that his clan conforms to the league's rules. We (the RTS League staff) should not have to babysit for every clan. A clan operator should be competent enough to successfully manage his own clan.
While the smurfing itself is very frustrating, what is also frustrating is that we did not catch the smurfing earlier. The regular season has come and gone, and we are now in the second round of the playoffs. With Lad cheating, we now have an inaccurate playoff bracket. Teams should be seeded differently, and Lad shouldn't be in the bracket at all. There is no perfect solution – we certainly don't want to start over, but at the same time, the bracket is defective.
Our main concern is that Lad's cheating resulted in DoD missing out on first place in the division (Lad and DoD finished tied, with Lad getting the tiebreaker). First place is very important, because the first-place clan earns a coveted first-round bye in the playoffs. Therefore, DoD should not have had to face-off versus TSM in the first round. And for those who missed the first round, DoD was eliminated by TSM.
After much discussion among the RTS League staff, we decided to leave the playoff bracket as is, but with one significant alteration:
DoD replaces Lad in the brackets, and now faces off against TBL.
The reasoning for the decision, briefly stated, is that although DoD lost to TSM fairly, DoD should not have had to play in the first round at all. We feel that is only fair to give DoD the bye that they deserved. We do this at the risk of seeming to play favorites, but that is not the intention at all – DoD was screwed by Lad's cheating. We are simply trying to rectify the problem Lad caused.
Since we wanted to post a decision as soon as possible to set the situation in the Playoffs straight, this is just the first, most important part of the resolution. Other parts may still follow after further discussion amongst staffers, pending additional investigation.
This means that TBL are now facing DoD in the first Semifinals, while JSS vs. TSM Semifinals stay the same.
Last edited by ChronoJJ (2015-01-15 03:31:55)
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Nice work finding it out.
You mention it is a clan operators duty to maintain the clan 'clean'.
The sad part is, there are clans that don't care about the fair play at all and letting their true members play. I believe they are aware of it (at least the operators) and just hide it and think about how they could win the title with one more good/better player in their lineup.
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First of all, I apoligise to all the clans and players affected by this, being the clan who screws things up for everyone isn't a nice thing. Yes, Spacetime was in my clan and under my rule, however I don't have the tools some of you staffers do. Therefore if an individual continues to tell me he was an eso player and eventually tells me he was 'LoVe_GreenBay', why should I think anything different? It's nice how you have made your own assumptions, Blitz, but at the end of the day, you don't know me or my clan at all. Surely that is the problem, online if someone doesn't want you to know them, then you can't force them. This is our first season of RTSL and when Spacetime approached me to join and I saw his ability, why would I say no? We used 6 different players in this RTSL and although I can't prove it to you, if I had known it was ReDo, I wouldn't have let him play. I'm all for fair play. It's disheartening to see this, our first season and having come so far, I understand why we've been disqualified but I hope people can begin to understand that neither I or any of the clan had any idea that Spacetime was ReDo. Again, apoligies for the major inconvenience this has caused.
Last edited by IamCal (2015-01-15 13:05:05)
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My assumption was not directly to you but overall to past seasons and clans. I think there has been corruption before. I believe you'd had taken actions then, coming here and posting in the name of your clan. My apologies then, could have happened to me perhaps 
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Or...you are fairly new to the competitive AoT scene and therefore do not have knowledge of AoT's most notorious smurfs. I wasn't wary as I had never spoken to ReDo or even seen him online. Our recruitment system will change as a result of this and it will not happen again.
Just sounded a little like an insinuation, Blitz, but I understand how it sounds so it's no problem 
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I think you take the better decision RTSL staff, it can be problematic for someone but in your place i would have been act the same, shame that this happen again but well i hope the next season we can have a clean season
GL for DoD and provide us a nice games, very hard TSM and JSS game, so will be nice to see this new semifinals at least
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