Midday Profile Joined June 2011 Canada 59 Posts #21 Yeah let's cut out the passive aggressiveness ("you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)"). I agree with Erik here.



Look, it's great what you do for the scene and believe me with all the viewers and followers you get it's well deserved, but just because it's your tournament doesn't mean you can throw the integrity of the competition out the window. You can't just say "he probably wouldn't have won." Yes true, but come on, for players that want to make it big in the scene, NA is scarce enough in events, which is where things like this come in extra important. You can't just dismiss people like that, if this happened during CJ Sora's WCG Korea run, most people wouldn't even know that he exists, even among the people well versed in the scene. I know for a fact that Carnage's MMR on Europe can hit top 16 gm players and he himself I think is in the top 50? or 100? Either way, his rank and skill should be irrelevant to the fact that he should have been given a fair shot at qualification. So, let's go!

BasetradeTV Profile Blog Joined October 2012 Canada 1301 Posts #22 On December 12 2014 14:19 Erik.TheRed wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 12 2014 14:15 BasetradeTV wrote:

On December 12 2014 14:12 Erik.TheRed wrote:

On December 12 2014 13:55 BasetradeTV wrote:

(Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what I want to do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)

1 - The folks helping run the tournament were 100% volunteers (2 of our subscribers) who had absolutely zero experience regarding challonge, brackets in general, or handling issues in game. I'll go more into the "Y U NO HIRE PPL" below, but understand a lot of their decision making was poor communication from the fact that I was casting games at the same time and could not dedicate time to them to help handle the issues.





2 - The qualifier itself was plagued with ridiculous bad fortune. The first day I had no power, and our admin had no internet so we had to shift it to the following day, coupled with the fact that our primary bracket site (BinaryBeast) died for no reason in the morning, this caused a LOT of confusion for everyone involved. The same admin also became unavailable at the last moment.





3 - "Well fuck you, if you can have a 4k prize pool why can't you hire admins?" Well, fuck you, where do you think this prize pool comes from? Thin air? We're not exactly flush with cash after dumping everything into the prize pool, but just so you're aware we have been paying admins $25 per qualifier recently, and most of them are folks who work at Dreamhack, or have experience, such as Olimoley, handling players and brackets. I have a plethora of contacts who can do this job adequately however 3-5PM in North America = Sleep time in the rest of the world, and through bad luck zero people were available for this qualifier.





people were available for this qualifier. 4 - It was late when this issue became a made aware to us. Casting the EU Qualifier started at 10 AM and it was around 9 PM at this point. We had several players (unnamed, but thanks to all) looking at the replays, and when it was deemed that it was for sure hacking we said "Fuck him, let's move on" because at this point (had we back tracked to include you both back into the tournament) it would have drawn the tournament out even longer, and if we're going to be honest the next two opponents were Astrea (one of the best NA protoss players) and Kane (Just won the NA group). You probably weren't going to beat either of these players and I deemed it literally not worth ours or the viewers time to give the extra 1-2 hours any additional consideration.





Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum. (Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what Ito do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum.



What good is a 4k prize pool if your tournament fails to uphold the basic integrities required of a fair competition? You failed to administrate this matter, and it's embarrassing that you can't even own up to it. Spouting nonsense like "he wouldn't have a shot in the next round anyway" is ridiculous and undermines the entire point of competition. Why not just hand out medals to the top 10 ladder heroes instead? Or maybe the player with the biggest twitter following?



Saying that you run on volunteer labor/it was late/ the cat shit the rug/ etc, isn't relevant and does not excuse your behavior. Everyone knows that running an event is hard so it's up to you as the head admin to take the full responsibility for shortcomings and figure out how to make your product better in the future. What good is a 4k prize pool if your tournament fails to uphold the basic integrities required of a fair competition? You failed to administrate this matter, and it's embarrassing that you can't even own up to it. Spouting nonsense like "he wouldn't have a shot in the next round anyway" is ridiculous and undermines the entire point of competition. Why not just hand out medals to the top 10 ladder heroes instead? Or maybe the player with the biggest twitter following?Saying that you run on volunteer labor/it was late/ the cat shit the rug/ etc, isn't relevant and does not excuse your behavior. Everyone knows that running an event is hard so it's up to you as the head admin to take the full responsibility for shortcomings and figure out how to make your product better in the future.



Please, teach me more from your first hand experience in these matters

Please, teach me more from your first hand experience in these matters



Yes very logical response, because I'm not a tournament admin I clearly must not be capable of criticism. I have a feeling that your long-term success and viewership will speak for itself though.

Yes very logical response, because. I have a feeling that your long-term success and viewership will speak for itself though.



If I had a penny for every time I've had to say that phrase myself, I could hire so many admins!!! If I had a penny for every time I've had to say that phrase myself, I could hire so many admins!!! Commentator

Caihead Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 8519 Posts #23 On December 12 2014 14:15 BasetradeTV wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 12 2014 14:12 Erik.TheRed wrote:

On December 12 2014 13:55 BasetradeTV wrote:

(Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what I want to do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)

1 - The folks helping run the tournament were 100% volunteers (2 of our subscribers) who had absolutely zero experience regarding challonge, brackets in general, or handling issues in game. I'll go more into the "Y U NO HIRE PPL" below, but understand a lot of their decision making was poor communication from the fact that I was casting games at the same time and could not dedicate time to them to help handle the issues.





2 - The qualifier itself was plagued with ridiculous bad fortune. The first day I had no power, and our admin had no internet so we had to shift it to the following day, coupled with the fact that our primary bracket site (BinaryBeast) died for no reason in the morning, this caused a LOT of confusion for everyone involved. The same admin also became unavailable at the last moment.





3 - "Well fuck you, if you can have a 4k prize pool why can't you hire admins?" Well, fuck you, where do you think this prize pool comes from? Thin air? We're not exactly flush with cash after dumping everything into the prize pool, but just so you're aware we have been paying admins $25 per qualifier recently, and most of them are folks who work at Dreamhack, or have experience, such as Olimoley, handling players and brackets. I have a plethora of contacts who can do this job adequately however 3-5PM in North America = Sleep time in the rest of the world, and through bad luck zero people were available for this qualifier.





people were available for this qualifier. 4 - It was late when this issue became a made aware to us. Casting the EU Qualifier started at 10 AM and it was around 9 PM at this point. We had several players (unnamed, but thanks to all) looking at the replays, and when it was deemed that it was for sure hacking we said "Fuck him, let's move on" because at this point (had we back tracked to include you both back into the tournament) it would have drawn the tournament out even longer, and if we're going to be honest the next two opponents were Astrea (one of the best NA protoss players) and Kane (Just won the NA group). You probably weren't going to beat either of these players and I deemed it literally not worth ours or the viewers time to give the extra 1-2 hours any additional consideration.





Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum. (Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what Ito do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum.



What good is a 4k prize pool if your tournament fails to uphold the basic integrities required of a fair competition? You failed to administrate this matter, and it's embarrassing that you can't even own up to it. Spouting nonsense like "he wouldn't have a shot in the next round anyway" is ridiculous and undermines the entire point of competition. Why not just hand out medals to the top 10 ladder heroes instead? Or maybe the player with the biggest twitter following?



Saying that you run on volunteer labor/it was late/ the cat shit the rug/ etc, isn't relevant and does not excuse your behavior. Everyone knows that running an event is hard so it's up to you as the head admin to take the full responsibility for shortcomings and figure out how to make your product better in the future. What good is a 4k prize pool if your tournament fails to uphold the basic integrities required of a fair competition? You failed to administrate this matter, and it's embarrassing that you can't even own up to it. Spouting nonsense like "he wouldn't have a shot in the next round anyway" is ridiculous and undermines the entire point of competition. Why not just hand out medals to the top 10 ladder heroes instead? Or maybe the player with the biggest twitter following?Saying that you run on volunteer labor/it was late/ the cat shit the rug/ etc, isn't relevant and does not excuse your behavior. Everyone knows that running an event is hard so it's up to you as the head admin to take the full responsibility for shortcomings and figure out how to make your product better in the future.



Please, teach me more from your first hand experience in these matters

Please, teach me more from your first hand experience in these matters



People do appreciate what you are doing, I don't believe the OP created the post because he/she wanted to discredit your tournament or damage your reputation. You did that yourself with your strawman post attacking view points that weren't even put forward. Honestly all you had to do was say "sorry it took so long to identify the hacker, this is the issues we had and we will try harder next time." and you would have come across as a great tournament organizer. Yet you shot yourself in the foot. People do appreciate what you are doing, I don't believe the OP created the post because he/she wanted to discredit your tournament or damage your reputation. You did that yourself with your strawman post attacking view points that weren't even put forward. Honestly all you had to do was say "sorry it took so long to identify the hacker, this is the issues we had and we will try harder next time." and you would have come across as a great tournament organizer. Yet you shot yourself in the foot. "If you're not living in the US or are a US Citizen, please do not tell us how to vote or how you want our country to be governed." - Serpest, American Hero

LongShot27 Profile Joined May 2013 United States 2084 Posts #24 Shit happens, deal with it. You have any idea how many of us have been fucked over by barcodes and alias hackers in weekly cups, tournament qualifiers, and everything else? Instead of running to team liquid accusing people of whatever why don't you be constructive instead of a snarky prick? Do you expect them to do a video call with every player in every qualifier to "make sure" everyone is who they say they are? Welcome to the world of competition where people are going to fucking cheat. This time you got fucked, sack up and get over it. Play in another qualifier, win something, don't whine, and get ready for it to happen to you again, a lot.





Also shitstorm to follow this post If all men were created equal there would be no reason to declare it.

gh0st Profile Joined January 2010 United States 98 Posts Last Edited: 2014-12-12 05:33:18 #25 Tournament organizer: "You probably weren't going to beat either of these players."



Why organize a tournament then? That is laughable. Also anyone who needs to put a disclaimer at the beginning of their post saying they want to respond to the OP like an asshole but won't is... wait for it... about to respond like an asshole.

shamas4444 Profile Joined December 2014 United States 1 Post Last Edited: 2014-12-12 05:33:17 #26



User was banned for this post. Bot edit.

BasetradeTV Profile Blog Joined October 2012 Canada 1301 Posts #27



+ Show Spoiler +



User was warned for this post At this point it's been advised that I stop posting, but I've been having a really great time, so I'll make this the last one. To summarize a a reply: Commentator

MadVillian Profile Joined September 2011 United States 127 Posts Last Edited: 2014-12-12 05:47:30 #28 After the tournament concluded, I think just PM'ing Rifkin directly or through a third party might have had a more positive effect. It would have avoided all these pitchforks that wait for personalities in the community to slip up, and even if he did blow you off then you could still bring it here. However, I would bet that talking to him in private would have helped you understand where he was coming from and possibly helped him better handle these situations in the future.



BasetradeTV has done a ton of shit for SC2 these past couple years, enough to forgive much more than this. In there like swimwear.

habibe Profile Joined March 2011 Canada 37 Posts Last Edited: 2014-12-12 07:35:37 #29

RDaneelOlivaw Profile Joined April 2011 Vatican City State 727 Posts #30 On December 12 2014 14:42 MadVillian wrote:

I think just PM'ing Rifkin directly or through a third party might have had a more positive effect. It would have avoided all these pitchforks that wait for personalities in the community to slip up, and even if he did blow you off then you could still bring it here. I would bet that talking to him in private would have helped you understand where he was coming from and possibly helped him better handle these situations in the future.



BasetradeTV has done a ton of shit for SC2 these past couple years, enough to forgive much more than this.

No kidding. Completely inappropriate venue (especially with that title, lol) to bring this up before pm'ing Rifkin or reaching out in some other way.

It's too bad it happened, but with all the good work Basetrade does its probably more a miracle that this hasn't happened earlier. No kidding. Completely inappropriate venue (especially with that title, lol) to bring this up before pm'ing Rifkin or reaching out in some other way.It's too bad it happened, but with all the good work Basetrade does its probably more a miracle that this hasn't happened earlier. I'd challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed

BEARDiaguz Profile Blog Joined June 2009 Australia 2353 Posts #31 lol. It's really unfortunate you have to make a decision based around this sort of thing but there's no reason to be a cunt about it. A player was denied a fair shot of competition in your tournament, and that's entirely on you, even if you had a fair reason for it. Progamer Australian alcohol user follow @iaguzSC2

Shikyo Profile Blog Joined June 2008 Finland 24342 Posts #32 The heck? Well, I'm someone who has hosted and co-hosted plenty of tournaments(not in SC2 however) and fairness of competition has always been the top priority by far. Those are some of the most unprofessional responses I've ever seen. I'm definitely boycotting everything organized by BasetradeTV. I'm not sure what you're after but quality competition doesn't seem to be it. If you are looking to make money, getting a real job would be far more profitable and reliable so I'd suggest that avenue. League of Legends EU West, Platinum III | Yousei Teikoku is the best thing that has ever happened to music.

gh0st Profile Joined January 2010 United States 98 Posts #33 On December 12 2014 14:45 habibe wrote:

What a truly bizarre response. I'm not sure I can ever remember a TO explicitly admitting that the integrity of their tournament is secondary in importance to the time of its admins and viewers. Moreover, calling a player entitled for requesting that you meet that basic standard beggars belief. I had no horse in this and had no idea of any reputation but you certainly did do your best to meet it with that accounting. A simple apology made in good faith, taken in the light of the difficulties you had that day, would surely have satisfied, and it would have wasted much less of that valuable time of yours than this misplaced rant to boot.



Exactly. Exactly.

Zidane Profile Blog Joined July 2008 United States 1655 Posts #34 He can't respond anymore guiz

kaykoose Profile Joined February 2014 United States 2282 Posts #35 Whoa. Rifkins response is not what I expected. He seems so cool in his casts...

twndomn Profile Joined September 2010 397 Posts #36 On December 12 2014 13:55 BasetradeTV wrote:

(Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what I want to do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)

1 - The folks helping run the tournament were 100% volunteers (2 of our subscribers) who had absolutely zero experience regarding challonge, brackets in general, or handling issues in game. I'll go more into the "Y U NO HIRE PPL" below, but understand a lot of their decision making was poor communication from the fact that I was casting games at the same time and could not dedicate time to them to help handle the issues.





2 - The qualifier itself was plagued with ridiculous bad fortune. The first day I had no power, and our admin had no internet so we had to shift it to the following day, coupled with the fact that our primary bracket site (BinaryBeast) died for no reason in the morning, this caused a LOT of confusion for everyone involved. The same admin also became unavailable at the last moment.





3 - "Well fuck you, if you can have a 4k prize pool why can't you hire admins?" Well, fuck you, where do you think this prize pool comes from? Thin air? We're not exactly flush with cash after dumping everything into the prize pool, but just so you're aware we have been paying admins $25 per qualifier recently, and most of them are folks who work at Dreamhack, or have experience, such as Olimoley, handling players and brackets. I have a plethora of contacts who can do this job adequately however 3-5PM in North America = Sleep time in the rest of the world, and through bad luck zero people were available for this qualifier.





people were available for this qualifier. 4 - It was late when this issue became a made aware to us. Casting the EU Qualifier started at 10 AM and it was around 9 PM at this point. We had several players (unnamed, but thanks to all) looking at the replays, and when it was deemed that it was for sure hacking we said "Fuck him, let's move on" because at this point (had we back tracked to include you both back into the tournament) it would have drawn the tournament out even longer, and if we're going to be honest the next two opponents were Astrea (one of the best NA protoss players) and Kane (Just won the NA group). You probably weren't going to beat either of these players and I deemed it literally not worth ours or the viewers time to give the extra 1-2 hours any additional consideration.





Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum. (Hi guys, Rifkin here) What I could do, what Ito do is assume the persona everyone has given me of being this massively negative condescending prick, and go on the attack about your entitlement issues. But I won't, instead I'm going to explain this situation as best I can. If you still have issues, you are welcome to never compete in anything we run again :-)Truthfully speaking, there's no need for justification, it's our tournament (OUR HOUSE OUR RULES). Hopefully all the other tournament organizers (LOL) out there who are constantly holding North American qualifiers (LOL) will look at this post and learn something from it, because for me, all this does it put another point in the "Don't waste time with NA players" coloum.



Truthfully speaking, YOU ARE A RUDE PRICK. You're finished. Players can easily boycott you, the community doesn't need you, you need the community.

Truthfully speaking, YOU ARE A RUDE PRICK. You're finished. Players can easily boycott you, the community doesn't need you, you need the community. "If MC wins this, his name would not be SK MC, it would be ST MC, ST for Saint, performing miracles." - Artosis.

SetGuitarsToKill Profile Blog Joined December 2013 Canada 28391 Posts #37 Oh this is getting good. Community News "As long as you have a warp prism you can't be bad at harassment" - Maru | @SetGuitars2Kill

Silvana Profile Blog Joined September 2013 3713 Posts #38 On December 12 2014 14:47 RDaneelOlivaw wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 12 2014 14:42 MadVillian wrote:

I think just PM'ing Rifkin directly or through a third party might have had a more positive effect. It would have avoided all these pitchforks that wait for personalities in the community to slip up, and even if he did blow you off then you could still bring it here. I would bet that talking to him in private would have helped you understand where he was coming from and possibly helped him better handle these situations in the future.



BasetradeTV has done a ton of shit for SC2 these past couple years, enough to forgive much more than this.

No kidding. Completely inappropriate venue (especially with that title, lol) to bring this up before pm'ing Rifkin or reaching out in some other way.

It's too bad it happened, but with all the good work Basetrade does its probably more a miracle that this hasn't happened earlier. No kidding. Completely inappropriate venue (especially with that title, lol) to bring this up before pm'ing Rifkin or reaching out in some other way.It's too bad it happened, but with all the good work Basetrade does its probably more a miracle that this hasn't happened earlier.



Don't want to start a fight with you guys but note that Rifkin's response is way more inappropiate than OP's post... and kinda makes the title valid! Don't want to start a fight with you guys but note that Rifkin's response is way more inappropiate than OP's post... and kinda makes the title valid!

LongShot27 Profile Joined May 2013 United States 2084 Posts #39 On December 12 2014 14:42 MadVillian wrote:

After the tournament concluded, I think just PM'ing Rifkin directly or through a third party might have had a more positive effect. It would have avoided all these pitchforks that wait for personalities in the community to slip up, and even if he did blow you off then you could still bring it here. However, I would bet that talking to him in private would have helped you understand where he was coming from and possibly helped him better handle these situations in the future.



BasetradeTV has done a ton of shit for SC2 these past couple years, enough to forgive much more than this.



Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis so much thiiiiiiiiiiiiis Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis so much thiiiiiiiiiiiiis If all men were created equal there would be no reason to declare it.

LongShot27 Profile Joined May 2013 United States 2084 Posts #40 On December 12 2014 14:47 ROOTiaguz wrote:

lol. It's really unfortunate you have to make a decision based around this sort of thing but there's no reason to be a cunt about it. A player was denied a fair shot of competition in your tournament, and that's entirely on you, even if you had a fair reason for it.



Rude, self-centered, man-children who think they deserve to be treated special because they got the short end of the stick in a situation that some asshole who we don't even know need to be talked to like a cunt, because someone obviously forgot to when they were younger. Rude, self-centered, man-children who think they deserve to be treated special because they got the short end of the stick in a situation that some asshole who we don't even know need to be talked to like a cunt, because someone obviously forgot to when they were younger. If all men were created equal there would be no reason to declare it.

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