The CIS RMR tournament organizer, EPICENTER is facing severe criticism from all quarters for its handling and production of the RMR event. From no-delay streams, lack of replays and now two teams splitting RMR points without playing a match, the tournament has seen a lot of problems.
The Epic League is facing severe criticism and complaints over its handling of the EPIC League CS:GO League Spring 2021. The CS: GO RMR event does not feature some basic resources such as anti-cheat, communication records, replays or proper schedule according to professional players.
The CIS RMR event serves as a qualifier to the upcoming $2 million PGL Stockholm Major. As such, the stakes are high and change in rules or their implementation will impact teams at the highest level. The EPIC CIS League Spring 2021 is a Valve-sponsored RMR event with $40,000 prize pool and 10,000 RMR points.
Problems everywhere for EPICENTER
The official broadcast does not feature any delay, opening the possibility of stream-sniping that could compromise the competitive integrity.
But that is not the only problem with the league. Professional players have complained about the lack of teamspeak records, no replays and no anti-cheat. These are fundamental resources for most tournament organizers, including Flashpoint 3and cs_summit 8. Regional Major Ranking events reward RMR points to teams up to the 8th place. However, the CS: GO RMR event organizer had not revealed the schedule for the 5th place match to the participating teams.
Natus Vincere’s star player, S1mple, has been vocal about his criticism for the CIS Regional Major Ranking event. The lack of information about match-schedule can hurt a team's preparation for the event.
Astralis’ Bubzjki feels Valve should be proactive in implementing the same rules and provide structure to the RMR events. These events serve as qualifications to the Major and Valve has a responsibility to ensure the enforcement of rules.
The tournament organizer is also accused of changing the rules and format on the fly. Esports.gg has not verified these claims.
The EPICENTER streams have also faced major production issues. One of the matches showed the casters on screen instead of the actual gameplay. This continued for eighteen rounds and CS:GO viewers could not see tthe CS: GO RMR event
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Teams split 5-6th position RMR points during EPIC League CS:GO
In a surprising twist of events, EPICENTER announced that the fifth place match will not take place as is the norm. Instead, the Na'Vi and Entropiq have mutually decided to not play the match and split the RMR points (50 points apiece).
It is still unclear if teams can decide to not play the 5th place match as per Valve’s rules for the Regional Major Ranking events. So far, Valve has maintained its silence on any issues at RMR events. Earlier this month, Flashpoint 3 came under heavy criticism for its decision to replay the NiP-Anonymo match after one team faced connection issues.
Update: Na'Vi agrees to play 5th place RMR match as Valve threatens to strike RMR points
Na'Vi and Entropiq initially refused to play the 5th place match. However, when Valve reiterated that refusal to play the match would mean the team(s) would have had to forfeit all RMR points, the teams agreed to play out the remaining match.
After learning about the penalties for forfeiting the match, Entropiq said that they want to play the 5th place match after all, while NaVi said that they are still not willing to play the match. We’ve then informed NaVi that Valve's decision in this situation may include withdrawing the team from the tournament and cancelling the RMR points earned during this competition. NaVi still said that they are unable to play the match.
Since one team was ready to play the 5th place decider, and the other was not, we’ve reached out to Valve again to find out their position on the current situation. According to them, in a situation where one of the teams refuses to play the 5th place match, their opponent gets awarded the win automatically, and the team that has refused to play the match gets removed from the event and has their RMR points earned at the event stripped.
In the end NaVi have decided to play the 5th place match vs Entropiq. The final time and date will be scheduled shortly, and we will announce it soon.
The two teams later agreed to a schedule as Valve said the two teams could lose all RMR points from the event if they forfeit the match.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest CS:GO news and updates.
