Fair play in Keystroke

Keystroke Esports is an organization that prides itself on providing high quality tournaments to all levels of players. High quality also includes the competitive integrity of every tournament. This is why, for example, we stay away from best-of-one series.

In a recent group stage match between MLGC Nazguls and Pl4toon Dota an administrative decision was made and we'd like to explain in full the reasoning for our decision.

In game 2 of their best-of-two series between MLGC Nazguls and Pl4toon a decision was made to continue the game being played under ruling 1.1.2 of the Keystroke Esports - Dota 2 General Tournament Regulations.

The incident happened as follows: 1) Draft phase of match occurred as normal.

2) -1:30 to -1:00 Both Radiant (MLGC.N) and Dire (Pl4toon) walked to their own jungles as five.

3) -1:00 Ember Spirit placed an observer ward to the left of the righthand mid river stairs.

Retreating back to his 4 team mates in radiant jungle thereafter. See image 1.

4) -1:01 to -0:32 Both Radiant and Dire stay in their respective jungles. See images 2&3. Pl4toon did not show in the vision radius of the Radiant observer ward placed at -1:00. MLGC.N did not move from between their outpost and radiant jungle ward pillar until -0:32, with the exception of Ancient Apparition who briefly walked down the north radiant outpost stairs and back up between -0:48 and -0:40

5) -0:38 Earth Spirit of Pl4toon used the in game "Good game, well played" chat wheel line.

6) -0:31 Gyrocopter of Pl4toon typed "pp" in all chat. Indicating the need for a pause.

7) -0:29 Vengeful Spirit of MLGC.N uses smoke of deceit applying the buff to all 5 of the radiant. See image 4.

7) -0:27 Puck of Pl4toon paused the game. Complying with rule 5.2.1 to wait 3 seconds after a 'pp' message to pause the game.

8) -0:27 Gyrocopter types in all chat; "packet loss" "sitting at 50". Disconnecting to reconnect shortly thereafter.

The decision in question is in overturning the events in (5) and ruling 5.8.2. The rule states: "Any use of “gg” or the corresponding chat wheel is taken as an official surrender or forfeit of the game. Accidental use is not tolerated. At any time if a forfeit signal is used that team will forfeit the game."

The overturning of ruling 5.8.2 was done by means of ruling 1.1.2. The rule states: "Official announcements as well as statements of referees at any place (e.g. competition website, email, steam, discord) can ignore or overrule the following rules in order to make the competition as fair as possible. In case of contradicting declarations, the most recent announcement or admin statement counts."

As ruling 1.1.2 states, Keystroke strives to "make the competition as fair as possible". The rule is in place to ensure a fair ruling can be made in any circumstance. An example of this in physical sport is when Rory McIlroy hit a golf ball into a spectators pocket. There was no ruling in the extremely extensive 2014 R&A Rule Book nor would a scenario like this even have been thought of. Thus the marshal had to make a call that made the result as fair as possible. The same goes with ruling 1.1.2

The rule of 5.8.2 was brought into effect because of an incident in the previous tournament. Team A was leading in the game. Team B were defending an incoming push. Team B accidentally used the same "Good game, well played" in game chat wheel. Team A, under the impression Team B had surrendered, pushed a lane with no care as they had believed the surrender. Team B subsequently wiped Team A as a result of the miscommunication. Thus ruling 5.8.2 was introduced for an instance as such not to happen again.

However, Keystroke Esports in keeping with the fair play statement of 1.1.2 do not believe forfeiting a game before any engagement had occurred, any information was gathered by either team, any initial bounty ruins were picked up, or any advantage of any kind was in hand, is fair. Playing a game through and testing skill and knowledge against your opponent is fair. Thus game two was continued.

The player "Insel" of Pl4toon will be fined 100% of his Event Point earnings due to his mistake in the preceding. Effectively resulting in a 20% reduction in Event Points earned for Pl4toon.

We hope this has cleared any queries regarding the admins decision during the game.