(This story is ongoing and continuing to unfold, please bear with me and check back for updates)





What an intense day of games in Raleigh, North Carolina, and what an interesting and awful twist to end it with



Here's what happened.....



After the final games this evening, though CURSE won, there will be no first and second place awarded. Both teams were disqualified. The full final standings are as follows:

N/A N/A Team Dynamic - $20,000 Orbit Gaming - $12,000 CLG Black - $4,000 Monomaniac Ferus - $4,000

This was a great tournament WITH a very interesting twist that ultimately led to the demise of our "first" and "second" place teams.

Photo courtesy of glocks4interns on reddit

The first game between Dignitas and Curse for the grand finals was played as an ARAM! This was decided upon mutually by both teams. The fans that were watching had mixed reactions about whether or not this was appropriate for a finals match in a tournament of this size. It was called everything from hilarious to disrespectful. However, MLG staff let it happen and followed it up with this tweet, which was later removed:

"And # MLGRaleigh is getting intense - crazy games all around, tense SC2 action, LoL going ARAM, and MK9 getting heated!" - MLG on twitter

Lee Chen from MLG had this to say on twitter about the state of the disqualification. It appears both Curse and Dignitas had conspired together to split the prize money.

"To be clear here folks, the Collusion had nothing to do with the ARAM. CRS/DIG conspired to split prize money. " - Lee Chen on twitter http://mlg.to/SFulSk " - This action by these teams, however, caused them to be disqualified from the standings. Here's what MLG had to say about the incident:

"MLG regrets to announce that we will not be awarding 1 st or 2 nd Place finishes for the Summer Championship League of Legends Event. We have determined that there was collusion between the two final teams, Curse NA and Team Dignitas. This is in clear violation of both the letter and spirit of MLG’s Official Pro Circuit Conduct Rules MLG official statement : “competitors may not intentionally Forfeit a Game or conspire to manipulate Rankings or Brackets.” As such, both teams have been disqualified, and no placements or prize money will be awarded." - After the match up between Dynamic and Orbit, which Dynamic won 2-1, both teams will still receive their awards and circuit points that they earned for 3rd and 4th place, respectively. A video coming out from Curse Elementz about what happened with the disqualification is Curse put this video out as a public apology:





Shortly after the above video was released, Curse sent out another video apologizing again for the ARAM game in the final and stating that all other accusations are false. Here is that video:





Currently MLG is planning to award the $40,000 prize pool to the teams that placed 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. This means that Dynamic will now will the $20,000. Orbit Gaming will receive $12,000. CLG Black and Monomaniac Ferus will each receive $4,000. This was just tweeted out by Adam Apicella (MLG):

MrMLGAdam's twitter "MLG will award the full prize money ($40,000) to teams ranked 3, 4, 5, 6." - Though, for Dynamic's NintendudeX, it's not the same. He tweeted this shortly after finding out his team gets the money for first place:

NintendudeX on twitter "dunno much bout all that MLG drama. i guess that means we technically placed highest, but still third place in all hearts." - On a lighter note, Deman had a grand time trying to cast an ARAM finals game, which he did a surprisingly good job!! He had this to say after the game: A video coming out fromabout what happened with the disqualification is here on Gamespot

RedBeard , who is the VP of eSports at Riot Games, posted , who is the VP of eSports at Riot Games, posted HERE stating that both teams admitted to the colluding.

This win at Raleigh would have given Curse 400 more circuit points and Dignitas 200 circuit points. If this weekend is telling at all, next weekend during the North American regionals should be a good one.