During the HGC EU qualifiers, Damascus Boyz lost to HydraPony and their controversial Samuro harassment strategy. After the game ended, accusations of bug abuse halted the tournament.
To those who missed it, here is what happened:
Kunichan, A player from HydraPony played a mean Samuro. Top damage, 0 deaths, and the crowds support over such disciplined Samuro play. However, while Twitch chat was spamming SMORC and Twitter was lavishing praise...
Damascus Boyz, the team led by the recently returned AlexTheProG, felt something was amiss. How was it possible that Samuro was so effective with his illusions? They seemed to never die and have free reign to harass the enemy team constantly.
Turns out that Kunichan was using a technique that, to his teams' knowledge, is an above-board tactic.
The Technique
- Samuro chooses the Illusion Master heroic.
- Samuro sends two illusions to harass the enemy team.
- Thanks to Way of the Blade, Burning Blade, and Press the Attack talents, Illusions do a fair bit of AoE damage.
- When an Illusion get's low HP, Samuro presses Alt + R.
- This causes Samuro to "self-cast" his illusion swap ability.
- Rather than swap places with an illusion, he stays in the same place.
- However, Illusions HP becomes that of the full HP Samuro, as if the hero actually swapped places with one of his illusions.
- The result is Illusions that gain full HP every 5 seconds. Pretty hard to kill.
After the loss, Damascus Boyz brought this to the attention of the admins, and what followed was a lengthy discussion on whether or not this was a bug and could qualify as deliberate abuse. According to Khaldor, HydraPony admitted to using the technique with noble intent, believing that it was simply part of Samuro's elusive kit.
Everyone knows that you can swap with images to regain their health, so isn't self-casting the swap just another option for Samuro to "Double Fake" his opponents?
The biggest complaint of some viewers was the team decision to call an admin after they had already lost the game. The supposed "bug" is very easy to detect and during the game, it was clear that Kunichan's entire talent build, strategy, and playstyle revolved around it.
Why didn't Damascus Boyz say something when it was first spotted? Is it ethically dubious to wait until after a game loss to speak up?
The Admin's Verdict:
The Admins were faced with a tough decision. There is a fair argument that Samuro self-casting his Illusion Master ability to repeatedly reset the HP of his illusions is an abusive tactic that takes advantage of an unintended game mechanic. This wouldn't be the first time that Samuro's Illusions caused bug related controversy (there was a moment where Samuro's illusions could grant him infinite Nukes on Warhead Junction) and, as Khaldor put it during his commentary...
"One of these teams is going to be upset with the verdict".
Ultimately, the admins granted HydraPony their game win but banned the usage of the technique moving forward. This sounds like a fair ruling, but not to those who don't feel the technique is in any way a bug.
Samuro finally found a powerful niche in competitive Heroes, and as of now, was banned from play during an official Blizzard sanctioned event because of it.
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