WCG05 Blog: Wed & Thurs

[s]event_10[/s]

Two awesome days of World Cyber Games has just passed by. Read on for how the Koreans eventually managed to not lower their 86% qualitification ratio, how more than ten yellow cards were given out, how CocoA got included to his group only hours before start and about the tie-breakers in group B.

At the beginning of Wednesday, we arrived to the tournament area early, catching the 8 o-clock bus. As players arrived and were checked in at around 10, I signed them in one by by checking their name, making sure they were wearing the official black WCG player T-Shirt of this year and that they had their badge on. They were photographed and then led to their seats by one of my top notch co-referees.

Players were to choose between their brought equipment or the official one. They could use their own assuming it was working - it was on each player's risk using it. After 45 minutes of signins, preparations and warmup, we gathered all the players to a group and had a rules meeting.

Yellow cards Squall (Late over 10 mins) Fayth (No save replay x2) masterok (No save replay + quit) vanilica (Not sitting down x2) ZelotITO (Lost badge) SuKeR (Did not wear uniform x3) forU (Eat/Drink) yAn (Did not wear uniform x3)

I stepped up on a chair in order to be heard by all the 32 players, and began by welcoming all their players to what is likely a big dream come true. The instructions I had to repeat loudly and firmly were about how players must wear the official uniform, containing of their badge, bibs and t-shirts or it would result in a yellow card after second reminder. As a new round starts, each referee would help the players to get in the correct games and instruct them to wait there until I gave the start command. If a problem would occur, the players must pause the game, raise their hand and wait for their group's referee, I explained, and introduced myself together with Revolve, Morglum, ErkenBrand, Choblar and Min-O (Mike) as the referee team. As soon as the match is over, the players raise their hand and wait for the referee to come to their seat and save the replay and ask the players to sign the result sheet. Not saving a replay would too result in a yellow card after being told twice. Players can not have drinks or food in the tournament area since that - too - would result in - that's right - a yellow card. No one could leave the tournament area until all games of the round was played.

As for results, I am sure most of you have discussed them in the forums and seen them in our coverage page or on the official World Cyber Games homepage, and additionally I can't comment anything on them. However, it is notable that iD.CocoA won his group (H) since we only managed to get him on the official player list the very day before start. He was never officially accepted by the Head Quarters but still sent by the WCG USA. Just before check-in, CocoA went up to me asking "I am not going to be able to play, am I?". His reaction on hearing the answer was, too least say, positive.

The tie breaker from the Wednesday was interesting. It is a matter of how to interpret the rules and one hour of arguing, complaints, discussions, rule reading, tie breaker map drawing and photographing later the tie breakers could finally begin. The game rules specifically say that you select qualifying players by checking 1) Win Ratio. In this case, all players had five wins and two losses. Secondly, it reads "In case of a tie in win ratio, the winner of the match between the two players qualify". It was a case of a tie in win ratio, however "the match between the two players" is not enough to determine the winners since there were more than two players and more matches than one involved. Thirdly, it says "If the qualifiers are not decided by above two conditions, rematch will take place" and that's what happened.

Replays are being uploaded shortly.

The playoffs are just about to start and I got more stuff to prepare, more updates later on! Follow the matches live and make sure to bet!