In the past few days, the “laughing through tears” stories about Epic League 2021 – the first RMR tournament of 2021 in the CIS region have become a hot topic on world and Vietnamese forums. Despite being an RMR ranking tournament for the Stockholm Major – the biggest CS:GO event of the year with a total prize pool of up to $2 million – Epic League has faced numerous criticisms from both fans and participating players due to its amateurish organization and confusing decisions.
Everything began last Saturday when S1mple – the star currently playing for Na`vi voiced his complaints about the organization of Epic League. Specifically, he revealed that the tournament had no anti-cheat feature, no TeamSpeak logs from the teams, no replays, and no information about the 5th-6th place match. This information quickly garnered support from participating players and prominent figures in the CS:GO community. Zorte, a player for forZe also confirmed that the delay for matches on GOTV was 0, meaning anyone with the password could watch the live match. Furthermore, some Chinese users managed to access the server and watch the entire match between Na`vi and forZe.
After S1mple raised these issues, the Epic League organizers decided to hold the 5th-6th place match just before the grand final between Gambit and Virtus.Pro, unexpectedly changing the format of the final from a best of 3 to a best of 5. Initially, both Na`vi and Entropiq agreed to participate in the 5th-6th place match, however, close to the time, both teams agreed not to play and share the RMR points received (partly because Entropiq had to compete in another tournament right before the match).
After receiving the notification from both teams, the organizers contacted Valve, and a representative from Valve stated that if they refused to play, both teams would be penalized by losing all their RMR points. Subsequently, Entropiq agreed to play, but Na`vi continued to assert that they could not compete. The organizers once again asked Valve and received the response that if Na`vi refused to play, they would be declared losers and still lose all their points. Ultimately, Na`vi accepted to compete and the match would take place on May 31 or June 1.
Amidst the criticisms regarding the server lacking anti-cheat features and having no delay, many suspicions were raised about Akuma, a phenomenon in this tournament as they achieved convincing victories against giants like Na`vi and Virtus.Pro to secure a 3rd place finish. Throughout these two matches, Akuma members displayed overwhelming superiority over their opponents with extremely accurate stack decisions, perfect timing,… and clips that raised doubts about this team.
SENSEi, the main AWP-er of Akuma later stated that he and his teammates did not use any third-party software and they were willing to cooperate with the tournament organizers for an investigation. RESF, the co-organizer of this tournament also released their official statement yesterday, May 30.
“After conducting a detailed investigation, we have gathered a significant amount of information about the Akuma members and the analysis of data on the computers of the Akuma members showed no suspicious signs. […] We have also informed Valve and ESIC about this incident and are ready to cooperate in sharing this information.”
The issues in the operation and the confusing decisions of the RMR organizing units in recent times have once again raised questions about Valve’s role and responsibility towards these tournaments as they are the only opportunities to earn points for a Major invite, the biggest and most prestigious tournament of the year. Hopefully, through this, Valve will gain valuable experience to choose capable organizations and hold fair, high-quality, and exciting tournaments in the future.