Hi all,
First, I would like to apologize for the length that this has dragged on. While not all of our work is explicitly public, I can say that the TD team has been dealing with this case for many, many hours combined both pre- and post-the last update. I, myself, have been interested in one thing only from the very start: finding out the most appropriate and fair actions that we should take with the German team members and the greater community in mind.
I would like to start the rest of this post by outlining the general issues that we faced:
1) There was clear evidence of some degree of misconduct with the German team, the specifics of which will not be elaborated upon in the rest of this post but assuredly do exist
2) The punishments rendered for a portion of the German team were considered unfair, not only by the accused themselves but by the greater tournament community
2a) I would like to add here that the TD team's decisions are not entirely up the community - while I will of course always listen to input from the outside, I firmly believe that the judgment of the members within the team should be the only way to move forward on any issue
3) The investigation into the German team during this WCoP caused us to fully and carefully evaluate our positions on ghosting, intra-team help and talking during battles. The result of this inward look brought us to a stage where we thought it would be appropriate to adjust some of the punishments initially handed out to the Germans.
At this point, then, I would like to make a note on what I personally consider competent or good leadership. I think a leader should be able to admit a case in which they have made a mistake, and reevaluation of that decision afterwards is not necessarily a mark of weakness but rather shows that community input and additional time spent on a situation can indeed be productive. I hope that during my tenure as a Tournament Director I continue to show and open mind for any of these situations that do come up.
A final word, then, before I will finish with the updates to the punishments: I apologize for the wait in a few of your cases. Unfortunately, this was a scenario that required looking at an absolute mountain of evidence and even then adjusting our rulings afterward in light of new information.
All this said, the TD team will be adjusting the following punishments:
Aurious: Serves out 2 month tournament ban (ending December 13), keeps infraction
Bluri: Adjust to 6 month tournament ban.
Get This Money: Serves out 2 month tournament ban (ending December 13), keeps infraction
Jira: Adjust to 6 month tournament ban.
Mil: Ban removed
Xray: Ban removed
Cosine180: Ban removed
Quaggster: Ban removed
To be as transparent as possible, I would like to close on the following note: many of you are aware of the evidence that the TD team used in determining our initial punishments. However, most of you are not aware of any of the supplemental information that has come in thereafter. It was an incredibly difficult decision, but in the end, we as a team have decided to err on the side of caution and lightness when determining to reduce or remove these bans. It was important to us to not establish certain precedents which will be considered going forward.
Again, to the community, it is startlingly easy to avoid either the forum-punishment or the social-stigma that comes with participating in ghosting. If there is no smoke, there is certainly no fire - don't come close to that line, don't suggest any sort of moves, allow your teammate or your friend to play completely alone and there will be literally 0 issue.
If there are any questions please feel free to reach out to me anytime.