Cover image source: @Valve
Valve has announced their decision to disqualify the CCnC stack, test123 from the South America Regional Qualifiers. The decision comes in the wake of a twitlonger post by NiP’s captain and former teammate of CCnC, Peter ‘PPD’Dager, where he called out the stack for playing in the SA Qualifiers despite having 4 players from NA. In his post, Peter talks about how the team, were largely based out of NA and were only travelling to Brazil just to play the qualifiers and then coming back.
Valve’s decision to include SA as a Region when distributing slots was meant to improve the region’s overall standing and to promote Dota in the region. With CCnC’s stack playing there, none of this was happening which to an extent meant that they were only playing in the region because it was easier to qualify to the Majors through it. Furthermore, last season, PPD’s team OpTic Gaming which included CCnC were exclusively told that they couldn’t play in the SA Qualifiers and the same was reinforced this season as well when he wanted to do the same with his new team NiP.
To this, I was told, "if you feel like you're cheating the system, you probably are, and that is unacceptable." - PPD
The CCnC stack which was formerly known as PainX had two Brazilian players in the first set of qualifiers for the Kuala Lumpur Major and the fact that they were part of an SA org made their case slightly different the first time around. However, this time, the team is no longer a part of the org and has 4 NA players and just 1 Brazilian. As a result, despite taking the top seed in the recently concluded SA Regionals, Valve has disqualified the team and given their slot to the 3rd placing Thunder Predators.
For teams that try to bend the rules on this to gain a competitive advantage over other teams, you run the risk of being disqualified outright. We will always reserve discretion to decide what is in the spirit of the regional goals and what is not. If a team wants to move to a new region completely, they are free to contact us and try to make their case on why they think they will be an actual team in that region going forward. - Valve
Valve’s full statement can be found here.
Valve’s quick decision making in this matter is commendable but the fact that the stack was directly invited to the SA Regionals is, in fact, a major oversight on everyone’s part, including the TO. Furthermore, the fact that Valve still hasn’t come out with a public statement regarding the Kuku and Skem issue, means that more communication from Valve and a more comprehensive rulebook is still the need of the day when it comes to matters pertaining to the DPC.
