Stephano forfeits final games of ONOG Invitational
One Nation of Gamers spent the weekend building suspense in their first online tournament for an exciting finals that almost didn't happen.
On Sunday, after his appearance in the SCAN invitational forced a forty-five minute delay, Stephano participated in the ONOG StarCraft 2 Invitational, beginning the day with a 3-1 win over vileIllusion. Meanwhile Empire's Kas emerged from the other side of the bracket over coL.CatZ, setting the stage for a satisfying conclusion to the tournament. The tournament had run a little late for Stephano's taste, however, and when his request to play the final match another day was denied he forfeited the remaining games and promptly logged off.
ONOG's President Deric Ortiz then made the executive decision to restructure the last few matches. Stephano was given fourth place, while the would-be third place match between Illusion and CatZ became a new semi-final. In the end Illusion won the semi-final 3-0 over CatZ, advancing only to lose to Kas 3-1 in the final.
About his decision, Ortiz said,
"For a split-second decision, I think it was alright. I didn't have an hour to ponder the situation endlessly; we already spent a lot of time attempting to broker some solution so I had to make a decision. The thing that came to my mind the most was the fact that there were barcrafts watching this. Barcrafts made this tournament and I felt I owed it to them to finish it for them. It wasn't an easy choice. I definitely think players should be able to gracefully forfeit a tournament. There was no choice that I could have made that would have pleased everyone in the world."
The events of the evening inspired a debate about the need for a governing body that could punish players who behave erratically. The community-minded Ortiz, however, was only worried about delivering a show to his viewers as promised.
"No. I think the punishment was sufficient. Something had to happen. We delayed the tournament at the request of Stephano. He started the semi-finals against vileIllusion at a time that was already late in France. He had to know this was going to be a long night. When he started talking about leaving, we offered to have him play against Kas immediately - we were willing to play the 3rd place match last. We honestly did try to find a solution."
Ortiz was also quick to point out that ONOG was not free from blame.
"I appreciate [the support from the community], but I think people need to be easier on Stephano – a player should have a right to forfeit and I think this is a case of mistakes on both sides compounding the problem. Also, while I appreciate the support, people should realize that ONOG deserves to share the blame too. Our tournament rules should have been more comprehensive and we should have been stricter when enforcing said rules."
ONOG raised the funds for the tournament by organizing various barcrafts in Washington D.C., New York City, Baltimore, and Chicago. With that in mind, Ortiz doesn't want to be complacent.
"We peaked at 9.9k on the first night and 14.5k on the second night which seems to be pretty enormous for a small $3,000 event. Also, a lot of people seemed to genuinely enjoy the event. Still, I noticed a lot of errors and mistakes we made and I am focused on fixing those. You can always do better."
