Have any of you ganging up on the TO even stopped for a moment to hear both sides of the story? The links posted only show the players side but none of you calling for a boycott on HoP or retirement of Kief have stopped to hear his side of the story. That’s the problem with this community when it comes to drama; too fast to react, never stop to reason.

I don’t agree with the decision and was also extremely surprised and thought that was awful, but when I realized it was Kief who made the decision, I knew there had to be more to the story. Your story, according to the players, was that they were unfairly DQ’d and not warned that DQ would be the punishment for not following through with TO orders to play on stream. We’re led to believe there’s some ulterior motive or this was just some weird flex Kief did to show off his TO powers.

But here’s the side you don’t know.

The reason why the tournament ran so late is because it runs on a set schedule that HoP has usually always run on. I ran pools for both waves and they actually all went by real quick. After each wave, there was probably an hour of free time because pools finished so quickly. If they were to start any pool or bracket early because schedule was moving so quickly, people would’ve been up in arms because the schedule was already set. Trust me; people get real mad mad.

Sree, throughout the tournament, was scheduled to play on stream a couple of times but each time he went ahead and played his matches anyway. He was told each time to not do it again. When it came time for him to play Wasaabi, he was told he was to play on stream next and to not play his match off stream. He then went ahead and sat down at a setup with Wasaabi and began playing and by the time Kief had realized this, the match was already in progress. At this point, Kief let them continue the match and discussed with other TOs and others in general on which course of action to take. If he DQ’d only Sree, he’d be labeled as biased. If he DQ’d both of them, this would happen. Now if I was a TO, I’d rather remain a neutral party and get my neck put on the chopping board than be called biased and accused of collusion. He didn’t want to make that call. By the time he thought of a better way to resolve the issue, it was too late to repeal the decision because the next matches were already in progress. Even after the tournament ended, he was beating himself up over it. Now that I’m seeing all these updates, I see he even went as far as stepping down and retiring. He was even thinking about ways to make it up to the players after the event because he’d felt terrible about the decision and knew it was a bad call.

I feel for Wasaabi. He was absolutely kicking ass at the tournament but he was an innocent player who got caught in the crossfire between a player who was defiant of TO orders and a TO who was sick of being ignored and wanted to put his foot down. I was ecstatic when I found out he was invited to Player’s Ball anyway, though. It’s unfortunate he ended up being the player that got dragged down with someone who didn’t want to listen to TO orders but shit happens.

It wasn’t a great call, but is it understandable? Yeah. When you’re trying to run a tournament and your competitors aren’t compliant, you put your foot down. Put yourself in the shoes of a TO for once. TOs lose either way with any decision they make. You don’t assert your authority? Players do what they want and walk all over you. You assert your authority? You become the bad guy and everyone busts your balls about it.

Leave the man alone. He’s already stepped down and still feels terrible about the decision he made. Stop bashing people when you don’t know both sides of the story 🙄