The echoe of the World Cyber Games scandal with teams winning crucial matches due to calls made by referees are still resounding. Anton “Cyclone” Lapshenkov, a WCG finals referee has posted a blog where he talks about the insider’s perspective on the controversy in the WCG Counter-Strike competition.
Lapshenkov was one of the referees of the eSTRO vs. MYM match. In the blog, he claims that he was excluded from the discussion between the Koreans and the referees and clearly takes the side of the Norwegians. The result of the game was changed, even though the match documents were signed. Towards the end of the event, the Russian decided to resign as a WCG referee.
He writes:
The scandal with the Norwegians and Koreans was going to an end. As it appeared, eSTRO pressed the judges and they’d found a doubleduck and appointed a rematch on only one map, despite the fact that MYM’d won two maps in the bo3 series. As the competent colleagues said the rematch should be on the best Korean’s map. I think you would agree with me, that it was hard to play the crucial map after the three hours of pickling in Korean nippers, especially after winning two maps with a great advantage and having signed match papers, what should mean no discussing and changing the results. But the judges had made a precedent - the rules can be changed.
The infamous CS 1.6 matches between eSTRO and Meet Your Makers and Virtus.pro vs. eMazing Gaming were decided by calls made by the WCG referees, after the losing teams claimed that the victors did something illegal. The poignant detail is that the decisions favored a Korean team (the WCG is a Korean event) and an American team (USA was the host nation), respectively.
The blog should be taken with a grain of salt, as the referee shows a great deal of nationalistic bias in it. Nonetheless, it provides an interesting perspective on what happened in Seattle. Read the translation of the blog here.
If you want to read Wire’s take on the WCG controversy, go to Mahmood Ali’s “WCG 2007: international disgrace at the grand finals” and Carmac’s “Bad rules, bad refereeing, bad WCG.“
2 Comments
I was referee`ing at this event, and I didn’t hear of anyone “resigning” from their ref duties, he probably was one of the guys just standing around doing nothing anyway, there were too many CS refs.
I don’t know him, and it was probably his first time reffing the finals, so it’s no loss imo.
The event has been over for a few weeks now, so I’m not sure why anyone is still talking about it, like something will be done about it.
WCG is a fare eSports company, and always has been, which is why I go to it’s events every year to compete and work.
Just to rectify a few things
First thing, for being the CS 1.6 Chief Referee, we were aware of the duckhopping, and it’s been in the book rules for over 3 years now. However, this is the very first year where we had problems with teams disputing everyone else.
2nd thing, Anton didn’t resign; he got turn around because he was “cheering” a little bit too hard for the Russians and the Ukranians wich were his friends (he’s Russian) and that after being warned several times. I personally asked the Tournament Director to thank him for his help but we couldn’t keep a referee that was acting like this.
The Russia vs USA situation was a no-brainer. USA won the first match and Russia disputed: Dispute has been cleared. Russia then won the 2nd match (USA didn’t dispute). USA won the 3rd match (Russia disputed the match again, but it got cleared and on top of that Russians has been found rail sliding and actually duckhopping while the US team didn’t do it [map was de_nuke]). The round was over.
As for the e-STRO vs MYM what you stated is Half right. The Chief Referee (myself)actually gave is decision: MYM lost 1 round for every round they won with the duckhopping exploit being used to their advantage. The 8 rounds taken off their score was actually higher then that but e-STRO got caught duckhopping too so they lost some rounds on that. This is why my decision was to call a DOUBLE FORFEIT! However both team leaders (Korea and Norway) complained. This is where the “VIP” badges got in the scene … it was actually the MYM and e-STRO managers + Korean and Norwegian representatives for WCG taking this to the next step: protest on the decision that was given. This is where the Head Referee of the event and the Event director took the decision to take the 8 rounds off and play the 3rd map. Of course, some people said it was e-STRO’s best map. However, the only match e-STRO lost at that time was actually on that map (de_inferno) and MYM’s pick during that round was de_inferno [wich means it would be the map they felt most comfortable with]. I would also add that the Tie-Breakers map were set and given even before the Round-Robin was over so there’s no way the map got picked in “favor of some teams”. It was purely random. Every official map was used once as a Tie-Breaker.
As for your statement that the Head Referee wouldn’t comment on the e-STRO vs MYM situation, I’m not sure if you’re talking about the Head Referee of the WCG Event or the chief referee for CS (wich was me), but I actually did an interview with Gotfrag’s own bsL. The only time I said I wouldn’t comment it was after my decision got changed by the WCG Committee and it was to other referees, not press or medias. Since it wasn’t my call anymore, I felt like I shouldn’t explain someone else’s decision.
I would also like to add that the WCG, being professional as they should, are already trying to find an innovative solution for the duckhopping/silent running exploits. We definately want to avoid the same problem and are totally opened to any suggestions as we would like to please everyone. Please feel free to contact me directly by e-mail about this new rule or anything else at: thierry@worldcybergames.ca
Best Regards,
Tee
WCG Grand Final - CS 1.6 Chief Referee
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