Cover-Credits:
The Vietnam Championship Series (VCS) Summer Qualifiers has been the hot topic of debates and discussions in the Vietnamese League of Legends community. The winner of the VCS Summer Qualifiers would get a chance to play in the VCS Promotions. There were serious allegations thrown around that the tournament organizer was favoring Genius (GE) Esports and that it disqualified DNS Gaming without solid proof. Now, the tournament organizer has finally responded to the allegations.
VCS Summer Qualifiers Organizer makes an official statement
On Facebook, the VCS wrote, “To clarify the penalty against DNS Gaming team. The Vietnam Championship Series (BTC VCS) organizers would like to provide more detailed information leading to the elimination of the teams from the framework of the 2022 VCS Summer [Qualifiers].”
It stated that in the process of the 2022 Summer Season in the VCS, the referees who were overseeing DNS Gaming received continuous calls from “third part[ies] that are members of the DNS Gaming team with the purpose of approach in order to favor the team during the match.”
It said that it also received multiple reports and requests to investigate DNS Gaming from other teams in the tournament. While reviewing all the data and information, the VCS organizer reportedly found three mistakes made by the team. They are:
Match accounts played by many people (in ranked mode).
Using new champions (Tristana and Twisted Fate) in the tournament and not providing evidence of verification when requested.
Incomplete registration by four of the DNS Gaming members.
The organizer stated that the team members of DNS Gaming had logged in and played from different cities and added, “Specific information about IP, daily log-in time will be shared directly to DNS Gaming team if they have a rival request at Vietnam Esports office.”
As a penalty for sharing accounts, the members who have violated the rules shall be prohibited from participating in the tournament for 12 months.
The organizer had also asked the team to share any other practice account where they had used the new champions, but the team failed to provide feedback or proof of resolution for the same. “Article 8.2.7: With lack of transparency and lack of cooperation during the investigation, the penalty framework given for this violation is disqualified from the tournament.”
Lastly, since the members had provided incorrect information while participating in the tournament, the team shall be eliminated from the tournament, noted VCS’ organizer.
We believe this is an appropriate punishment for DNS Gaming as well as a lesson for other professional teams to refer to in order to avoid repeating similar violations. Finally, the VCS BTC is continuing to expand the investigation of negative-signed behaviors in the VCS professional tournament system and will coordinate closely with the authorities to prevent behaviors that violate the rules of the tournament as well as the law[s] of Vietnam. "VCS
What happened in the VCS Summer Qualifiers?
On 30th April, the tournament organizer of VCS announced that team DNS Gaming was disqualified for alleged match-fixing. The team’s replacement was GE Esports, which is reportedly a much bigger organization with known former VCS players. DNS Gaming claimed that Garena was allegedly making false statements since its description was very vague and that it did not specify which player was involved in the match-fixing. The team also stated that Garena emailed about its confirmation in the tournament and two hours later, it disqualified the team.
According to the Facebook post of Isuzya Thiên Đoàn, a representative of DNS Gaming, the tournament organizer (BTC) emailed the team at midnight without informing them via other channels of communication. He had also shared an email from the organizers, which reportedly stated that DNS Gaming would be excluded from the framework of the VCS Summer Qualifiers because of an “unorthodox approach.”
The email stated, “Based on the denunciations as well as the evidence received about dishonest and unsportsmanlike behavior during the DNS team's competition in the framework of the VCS Summer Qualifiers.” It added that DNS Gaming had used Tristana and Twisted Fate, two champions that the team had not used in the “last three months.”
On 30th April, in a Facebook post, VCS’ organizers also wrote that DNS Gaming controlled the outcome of the matches.
The DNS Gaming representative also sought evidence to back up the claims and hoped that the BTC would run tournaments in a better, fairer, and more transparent manner.
Following this, the organizers of the VCS Summer Qualifiers decided to allow Genius Esports to compete in the semifinals. Genius Esports won 3-0 against Roy Esports to participate in the finals against AS Esports. Now, both Genius Esports and AS Esports have officially entered the promotion round of VCS Summer 2022.
