Exceptionally Sloppy and Inept Commission

And just when you thought the PARIVISION mess couldn’t get any crazier, ESIC decided to drop a minor and totally insignificant piece of information.

If you have no clue what we’re talking about, here’s a quick overview to get you up to speed.

PARIVISION qualified for the EU RMR, but their victory was short-lived. The team got disqualified after posting a video that showed coach F_1N in the room with the team – a no-no in online qualifiers according to Valve’s rulebook.

To make matters worse, F_1N was one of the 37 individuals banned from Valve events for exploiting the coach bug years ago. Naturally, at the time, ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission) followed suit, also banning coach F_1N from their member events.

But here’s the twist: ESIC recently dropped the news that F_1N’s ban was lifted after a “special evaluation” of an appeal submitted four years after the original ruling. They also mentioned that Perfect World wasn’t even aware of this change.

However, according to HLTV’s sources, the decision to overturn the ban was made months ago. ESIC just didn’t inform Valve or Perfect World about the change until after PARIVISION’s disqualification.

TL;DR: ESIC reviewed a four-year-old appeal, decided to unban the coach, and somehow did not notify Valve or Perfect World about the decision.

‘Hey man, we unbanned you but forgot to tell everyone, hehe’.

This back-and-forth is a nightmare for KOI, Monte, and BLEED, who had their hopes lifted only to see them crushed once more. If you happen to cross paths with kassad, it's probably best to steer clear - just to be safe.

In the end, we’re right back where we started. But at least we’ve got this absolute banger of a tweet to show for it. Shakespeare would be jealous.

Funny things are happening

Europe wasn’t the only place for RMR qualifier-based drama, let’s draw your attention to the Americas RMR for a moment:

First, we’ve got a pro tip for snav: don’t publically go after the admin who replayed the round if you haven’t read the rules that tell you he’s right to do so. Especially if you won the replayed round anyway, and still lost the game.

He’s fortunate we have a policy of not directly insulting players. Most of the time.

Instead, his team Elevate will be missing out on the Americas RMR, as will, equally hilariously, NRG.

All that money and you don’t even qualify for the RMR? You have autimatic, a Major winner, nitr0, a Grand Slam winner, and Brehze, who played well against Astralis when the Krieg was OP.

Surely you could figure something out? A team with stanislaw and Sonic qualified. BOSS have a player called Fruitcupx, and they qualified…

By the way, of the 16 teams, only four of them are NA-dominant. Wildcard and Liquid have a few NA players, but not enough to be an NA team. Just in case you were keeping tabs.

Over in the Asia-Pacific RMR, also quite hilariously, Rare Atom beat out TYLOO for a spot. Remember that TYLOO signed the old Rare Atom team by paying them more money, and then signed two players from Lynn Vision to finish the team.

TALON took the Australian spot, with a team that includes AZR of Renegades fame, and mhL, of once-thought-to-be-quite-good fame.

The other qualifiers in Asia-Pacific are still occuring - IHC are out in the East Asia one, but nobody there is particularly massive, and ohnePixel’s team is somehow still in this? What?

See you Monday, with an overview of it all!

It’s just like Indiana Jones…

It’s been a quiet week, but not too quiet. Our mics are still hot and ready - no, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Falcons suck, Heroic sucks harder

BBD. Bell Biv DeVoe? No, BetBoom Dacha - but it’s still our Poison.

Season 2 saw us jump straight into action with no groups and playoffs but just straight-up bracket-only action. Simple to understand, simple to write about.

In the upper bracket of the tournament, it’s been 2-0’s all around. MOUZ dismissed Eternal Fire pretty quickly and FURIA and Spirit sent VP and Falcons to the lower bracket in a similar fashion.

The only team to put up a real fight was paiN, who managed to take Heroic down in three maps only to then lose to the reigning champions - MOUZ - in again three maps.

The other “upper bracket semi-final” (does the word semi-final even carry any meaning in that case?) saw donk doing what donk does best: donking his way to a 1.99 rating in only 31 rounds. If donk’s doing that, can you really blame FURIA?

Heroic continued their post-break run of uninspiring form by biffing their second chance in the lower bracket against Eternal Fire. XANTARES showed us donk may be good, but he’s also still relevant with a 1.34 rating. That’s just okay compared to 1.99.

Things went a bit better for Virtus.pro and Falcons, who delivered a full Bo3 with SunPayus absolutely fighting to make Falcons relevant – to no avail.

To sum up:

Did you catch all of that?

🤑 PGW

🗞️ Good news everyone

🍇 Yeah I ‘member

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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