FwydChickn Complains About Match Delays and Redraft Problems in IESF MLBB Event

The iconic EXP Laner of BloodThirstyKings (BTK),  Ian "FwydChickn" Hohl, shared his complaints on the first day of the 2023 International Esports Federation (IESF) World Esports Championship (WEC) Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) Event. An unexpected technical issue surfaced during the deciding game between North American (NA) and Indonesian (ID), causing the match to be delayed for a long period. It also did not help the situation when the organizers decided to redraft the final game instead of simply restarting it with the same hero lineup for both sides. The issue was eventually solved but three matches for Day 1 have been moved to another day due to the massive delay and time constraints.

FwydChickn rants about match delays and redraft issues in 2023 IESF MLBB event

Through a live stream posted on Instagram, FwydChickn, one of the members of the NA team, shared what was happening behind the scenes during the long and concerning pause during the match between the NA and ID teams in the 2023 IESF MLBB event.

“The entire venue has no WIFI and we don’t even know when we’ll ever play again. We’ve been waiting for over an hour already, it’s already been two hours and it’s 1-1 (match score) still, we still have to play our third game,” he said.

He added that the organizers were constantly delaying match schedules on top of the technical issues that the team faced.

“We’re supposed to start at 10:00 AM (Romania Time) but before we went to sleep, they told us it’s just going to be delayed until 2: 00 PM, we have two matches today- 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM now they told us it’s 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Now, it’s 5:30 (PM) and we still haven't finished our first series and we still have another one to play,” FwydChickn explained.

In the video, he also revealed his frustrations on the organizers’ decision to redraft the deciding game, despite the drafting phase being finalized before the issue started.

“It’s really annoying that they’re redrafting, it makes no sense why they’re redrafting. I can understand restarting a game because of WIFI issue, that’s really fair…. But the redraft? The redraft, bro? Why redrafting, man? How’d that make sense?” FwydChickn complained on the video.

When viewers of his livestream asked why the organizers issued a redraft, the NA player explained that “according to the rulebook where something happens, and it’s the management’s fault or whoever’s fault and the game’s unplayable, it is the admins who will decide whether it’s a redraft or they basically just decide how it goes.” 

Following the rules, the organizers decided to go for a redraft which FwydChickn tried to argue against. “We had such a massive early lead, I don’t think they don’t understand how massive the early lead is.”

He further clarified that it is not the Indonesian team’s fault as this was decided by the organizers themselves. 

“It’s not BTR’s (Bigetron Esports) fault. I don’t wanna blame BTR, I don’t want to blame anyone at all… but it’s so stupid that we have to redraft,” he explained.

FwydChickn continued to question the actions done by the organizers when their phones were unexpectedly given back to them, which was not supposed to be allowed, while they were still on stage and waiting for their final game to start.

“You know it’s bad when they f****** give us our phones back. You’re not supposed to have your phones at all, on stage. You have to leave it in a room and you can’t even touch it. We’ve been waiting for over an hour, and they still cannot give us an ETA and they gave us our phones back, bro,” he said.

The match eventually continued and the redraft was made. This resulted in the NA team losing with a 1-2 score. Due to the massive delays in the Day 1 matches, the last three matches were rescheduled to another day.