Team One (GS #27) and 100 Thieves (GS #11) went head to head today for Intel Extreme Masters New York today, and the result was a closely fought (2-0) for 100 Thieves across two maps.
Shortly after the event concluded, however, some complaints began to arise on Twitter directly towards ESL admins from Team One regarding the beginning of the match.
Team One states that they were in the required Discord server well before the beginning of the match, yet were never reached out to by ESL admins who instead allegedly consulted only with 100 Thieves regarding maps and servers; the admins were allegedly aware that Team One was waiting for news.
Team One only received the notice that the event was beginning with the server information.
The CEO of Team One outlined this much in the complaint towards ESL, yet some fans have been taking it a bit farther and painting 100 Thieves as complicit in the event, taking advantage of the oversight (otherwise) that resulted in 100 Thieves netting an advantage in map pick.
It’s worth stating that if the allegations are accurate, it’s a bit of a big deal considering that IEMNY is a massive event with teams from all over the world playing, and map preference and strategy is a foundational segment within team tactics, such as Team Mythic being indomitable on Vertigo; thus, other teams always ban Vertigo from fear.
If a team didn’t have the opportunity to decide their maps, despite being in the appropriately identified Discord server to receive communications from the ESL-sanctioned admins, we could very well have yet another scandal on our hands that ESL will need to decide how to proceed with.
Being that the match was relatively close with a (2-0) yet Team One gaining 14 rounds on the first map (Vertigo) and 12 on the second (Inferno) than it bears mentioning that it’s plausible that not having a map choice skewed the results in favor of 100 Thieves, as admins were allegedly hanging out with them prior to the beginning of the match.
At this moment, there have been no statements coming forth from any parties that will likely have a hand in the results here: Valve, ESL, CSPPA, and ESIC have all remained silent thus far regarding the allegations and accusations, but a decision will need to be reached from the responsible parties sooner rather than later: the group stage will be closing on Tuesday and quarter-finals begin on Thursday.
If Team One needs to replay the match (they currently hold one win and two losses in group play) than it needs to happen before the quarter-finals.
