NoxFire League statement

Our response to recent incidents within the league -

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“From their work by tracking multiple sites’ odds at the same time it showed that the suspicion of match-fixing is a large possibility in this league.”



Odds on betting sites shift on games within other leagues as well- equally as drastically. I’ve observed these shifts after personally monitoring other matches’ odds. Having actually looked into the software by which betting sites use, I can safely say there’s a lot of naivety displayed by Twitter users in thinking shifts in odds displays damning evidence of matchfixing.



“..people in the league and some betting sites are coming forward..”



As repeatedly stated publicly, we’ve requested participants in the league along with betting sites to send us information or concrete proof. If the betting sites or Valve cooperate, we won’t hesitate to take action against parties responsible for unethical sportsmanship.



Having the same handful of players shrieking the same circumstantial evidence expecting us to act based on their word is preposterous.



“Then I found out, that the admin from the game – from spectators was named Eg.”



My account has been a reference to eG’s Battle.net account at one point or another, so have Zephy’s (the head admin) been a reference of mine. The same is said of my Facebook- these are inside jokes between friends. I will elaborate on a specific example to quench the unnecessary bloodthirst: we’ve played a match of competitive in which I named myself Zephy and team-killed her, this is an inside joke between us. As such, eG formerly had the name Olofmeister on his steam account, yet he is not Olofmeister. What our steam aliases are is not evidence of corruption.



Now to even presume the scenario the admin and I are the same person- that would imply the tournament organizer is the one spectating the match. That too is not evidence of corruption.



“Allen Ackberd guy (admin and organizer) who’s dealing with HKO – spectating, ghosting for them, actually giving them info on the map”



This is a ridiculous claim with no evidence.



“Actually, it was post on reddit few years ago from that man, who created the first season of the league with less prize pool, and now, on the second season he invited famous teams and increased money prize”



Excuse me? What reddit post? My account is public: https://www.reddit.com/user/Allen_Ackberd/



NoxFire’s first season was just several months ago, not years ago.



“This all started from closed Bulgarian qualifier. The organizer didn’t want to invite teams from Bulgaria. He was just searching for teams that were gonna throw for him. Actually, they helped HKO get to main tournament with the same tactics – ghosting for them.”



The organizer did not want to invite teams from Bulgaria even though this league was primarily a Balkans event featuring only Balkan teams? I invited three Balkan teams initially: Windigo, BPro, Bojestvata. We then invited Heavy Knockout and YamatO due to recommendations from players or other organizers, or players who reached out to us. Before inviting them, we even consulted with several well-recognized figures within the Bulgarian scene if they recognize Heavy Knockout and YamatO.



At this time, we had completed sending invites within the Balkans, yet a newly-formed team named FATE requested an invite. I again consulted several sources within the Balkans who mentioned that the FATE roster is equal or less known than the rosters in Heavy Knockout and YamatO.



Proceeding to the closed qualifier- initially the league was designed without closed qualifiers. Teams were flat out invited. When we last-second decided to open 6 spots to a “Rest of Europe” category, we had to move several teams to closed qualifier. We decided to move Heavy Knockout and YamatO, two Bulgarian teams, into the closed qualifiers.



Think this through, if my admins and I had wanted so, we could’ve very easily made the decision to move AKOPALIPSA, Bojestvata, Volgare, GamePub into the closed qualifiers in lieu of these two teams. We put those two Bulgarian teams into the closed qualifier as they were recognized as the weaker teams when I consulted several reputable figures within the Balkans.



The reason FATE was not invited was that the closed qualifier category was already full- full of teams who were initially outright invited.



During the course of the closed qualifiers, Bulgarian team YamatO was accused of also cheating, yet they lost to HoP who proceeded to qualify. Now HoP are accused of cheating or match-fixing instead.



I presume any team who would’ve qualified would’ve faced the same fate as of being accused as the players in FATE are upset at the lack of an invite. The lack of an invite was only made as their roster was announced after invites were already distributed prior to even the decision of changing our format into a closed qualifier.



“So we are thinking of leaving the league now, because I think they will not pay the money from prizes – but it sucks because we just want to play against good teams. But we were so tilted when we saw what’s happening that we don’t think we can stay.”



Understandable. Truthfully, we’d be very happy if this team still stayed to participate as the team in question is a strong team full of well-respected players within the Balkans, however, with the insults and accusations, and mistrust of the tournament organizer, it would not be right for the team to continue to participate. We’ve reached out to offer them a consolidation prize of $500 regarding their current standing if they so choose to leave.

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Now on a personal note, as provable by my conversations with several prominent figures in Counter-strike, when organizing this tournament, I had one major question- “Would it be possible to host this league without the support of betting sites? Can we be featured on coverage sites while not being listed on betting sites?” to which we were informed that a large percent of the viewership comes from bettors. Our recent stats show ~70% based on Twitch statistics.



Initially I did not want this event featured on betting sites not solely for the fear of potential match-fixing, but because we did not want to deal with the negative press or community backlash of gamblers upset about results. We’ve received hate mail both on our social media handles and to our personal social media accounts, we’ve received death threats. One example is of the team Unicorns of Love. Recently a supposed internal conflict occurred within their team of the player “kzy” team-killing. This sparked outrage and accusations of our league hosting match-fixes. Whether that incident was due to internal conflict or due to more dark reasons such as match-fixing I do not know as we have not received any information or cooperation from betting sites or Valve. However, Unicorns of Love are featured in other leagues as well- why would an incident within our league drive accusations of us promoting match-fixing?



I’ll end this statement by saying once again, our contact info is listed. Anyone is free to send us evidence and if the evidence is concrete, we won’t hesitate to act on it.



On a side note- Winstrike are not participating within our league.



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