8:22pm May 11th 14

Storm would like to issue a statement of today's Agon LoL Qualifier round. We urge people to read it to understand what happened today, and that we would request a response from Agon in regards to this matter.



Agon: https://www.facebook.com/AgonGame, http://www.agongame.net/



The issue here started when in the Avant v. opL match, one of the Av players (Nex) was rude/disrespectful to the other team and was then banned from taking part in the rest of the competition. This decision has the support of both opL and Av.



The bracket as it stands after today: http://challonge.com/Agon_C



Because of this, Avant now only had 4 players to play the next match (against Storm). They had not specified any subs in their roster. This meant that they would either have to play with 4 players or forfeit the match against Storm, under section 3.2 of the original rules. See below screenshot of those rules and the PDF of the Agon website in which all players must agree to follow these rules:



http://imgur.com/uDb9hde.jpg



www.agongame.net/img/downloads/Agon-Competition-Rules-2014-May.pdf



Storm had asked the admin team if they could use another player (other than their sub) in the final match as their current top-laner couldn't play in the last match. This request was denied and the sub Storm had was played, as per the rules.



Avant however, then used Av Seth - an admin of the competition - as their sub in the final match. Unknown to Storm at the time of play, he was not in their roster that had signed up to this competition. Storm then lost this match to Avant.



Storm captains then realised that Seth was not on the roster for Avant in any way and had infact played for them, breaching section 3.2 of the rules at the time. No communication was made to Storm about them using this sub, no approval was sought.



Storm player Hippo The Kitty then brought this up with Eklipsed, an admin of the tournament. The screenshots of this conversation below, email addresses have been censored for privacy.



http://imgur.com/a/nxBl1



As the Google Doc of the rules was linked to us by Eklipsed, the team then noticed he was editing the rules to say that now instead of 3.2 saying only accounts specified on sign-up, it was now open to say that only 3 core members from a team needed to play.



http://i.imgur.com/x83KVN8.png

http://i.imgur.com/yymKqRl.png



Which in turn would have meant Storm could have used any other sub they wanted and would not have had to be forced to use the one on their roster for the match against Avant. The rules were also stated to have been applied to every team no matter when they were competing in the tournament. (Not just after the qualifier as Eklipsed claimed)



At the end, Eklipsed then says that we should refer to rule 12.2 (non-existent). He probably meant 13.2 which is: "Agon reserves the right to change the rules at any time if needed, to continue a quality of fairness for the players."



While Storm agrees with this rule, we do not think retroactively enforcing a changed rule is the way to go. The rules as they stood when the match was played, meant that Avant used a player that was not approved for play when they should have played with 4 players, or forfeited the match. At the very least they could have asked Storm, as is courtesy to do when using subs, however Storm was never informed or asked about Seth being a sub.



This sort of changing rules without notifying teams undermines the credibility of such competitions. The rules need to be set in stone from the start of a competition, and it's bad luck if you get on the wrong side of them, no matter which team you are.



We are making this post to show what happened here, and that for competitions to be taken seriously in Australia, we need iron clad rules that don't change without proper notice, and not to retroactively enforce rules.



We are disappointed with the handling and outcome of today's events and would request in future that Agon and the admins there do a better job of writing rules to be kept to, and that teams are notified if a major change to rules takes place. There also needs to be clear understanding from all admins on rules, and communication be held as a top priority to prevent a repeat.



We are not pointing the finger at Avant, they played well throughout the competition and were only doing what they thought was right (or that they were told was right).



We are requesting Agon to make a response, and some action be taken in regards to this matter.