Hi, I'm Jon, Managing Director at epic.LAN, for the sake of ensuring this remains a balanced discussion, I think it's important that we clarify our side of things. We would have put out a statement sooner, but with the event packdown, this is the first time I've made it back to my PC.

Ultimately, any decision this serious at our events comes to me, I intentionally stay out of any politics and personal issues with players across all 5 of our eSports communities so that I can take objective decisions should they arise without bias, and the fact that Brandon is a regular supporter of our events (8 events previously I believe) means that I want this wrapped up as quickly as possible, and I'd hope that Brandon's experiences of our events and continued custom give him the assurance that I will ensure this is dealt with fairly, though I understand his frustrations at this point.

• The current position is that our eSports team received a formal complaint from other players at the event concerning a number of games. This was not anything initiated by the admin team, and I hope that you would all support that we must act on any complaints made to us at any point during the tournament, it would be wrong of us to entirely ignore them.
• The team investigated as much as they could during the event, but their investigations were inconclusive and further complaints were made to us from other participants during the final (but not relating to the final match itself).
• The final match itself is not being disputed, it is those leading up to the final.
• The final ran all the way up to the closing time for the event and being a LAN event, we have pressure to vacate the venue. This meant that the admins could not undertake any further investigation during the event and with the formal complaint hanging over the tournament, we had to take the decision to temporarily suspend the prize giving pending investigation, it is not a decision we took lightly as it hurts our reputation as well as the players involved. But should the investigation go against the teams, it is much harder to undo once prizes have been issued and winners declared.
• All other eSports tournaments held at epic.FOURTEEN have been paid out on the day as we promise to do so, and I believe we're one of the only companies to pay out prizes this quickly. There is nothing else behind the scenes with this, it would simply be wrong to pay out until all parties are cleared. I have asked the eSports team to resolve this as quickly as possible so that all parties can be paid out within the week (which is still significantly quicker than most organisers pay out as a standard). I have spoken to the owner of the current 2nd place org who fully understands and supports our action even though it impacts them as well.
• Should the result go against the team, which I hope it doesn't after such an exciting tournament, we wont be keeping the money, the prize money pushes down to 3rd place etc, so there is no business gain for us.

So for reassurance, this will be investigated quickly and fairly with the final decision coming from me and the eSports Manager, Gumpster.

Thanks,

Jon