The MSI Beat It RGN League of Dota 2 was not rigged. This is what really happened.

In case you missed it, there’s been great uproar about the MSI Beat It! Rapture Gaming Network (RGN) League Philippine Dota 2 qualifiers allegedly being rigged. According to the story that’s spreading like wildfire, “no games were played”, but the tournament brackets were updated with results, eventually showing Mineski’s advance to the finals.

Of course, if you look at it from that angle alone, it looks like everything was fixed in favor of Mineski, but was it really?

How did this whole fiasco start?

Yesterday, Philippine team The Chosen Ones posted on its Facebook page that they believed the Philippine qualifiers for the MSI Beat It RGN League were “rigged” with “fake results”. According to the team, no games were played, but results were released, and there were “no instructions” from RGN. They also expressed their disappointment in how the tournament was run. Here’s a screenshot of said post along with screenshots as uploaded by The Chosen Ones:

But, of course, there are two sides to every story. In an attempt to clarify things, most of the involved parties held an online conference so everyone could voice their concerns and explain their side. This conversation included Mineski’s website department head and editor-in-chief Richardson Yu Jacinto (who isn’t part of the Mineski Dota 2 team, but was present during the duration of the tournament), The Chosen Ones’ manager Alex Yakovlev, Evocatus’ team captain PJ Garrigues, and RGN’s product manager and tournament administrator Michael Phee. The Chosen Ones’ captain Richmond Bernardo later joined the conference.

Although Games In Asia was in no way involved with the tournament or any of the teams, I was also in the chat as a neutral journalist looking to hear both sides of the story. All parties involved were aware of my presence in the conference and were told that I would be writing an article about their conversation.

Each representative voiced their concerns and explanations, which I will enumerate here based on what I’ve gathered from the chat.

DQs, DQs everywhere

According to RGN, most of the Philippine qualifier games were not played because teams failed to show up in time for the match, resulting to disqualifications. Some matches even had double disqualifications because both teams were nowhere to be found. The string of disqualifications allowed Mineski to advance to the finals of the qualifiers, as the team showed up in time for their matches.

But the representatives of the players, Garrigues (Evocatus) and Yakovlev (The Chosen Ones), stated that they weren’t able show up because the tournament instructions and brackets were nowhere to be found, and they had no way of contacting any of the tournament marshals or organizers.

RGN said that the instructions were posted on the RGN website where players could also find registration links and tournament rules. I checked the article in question and the relevant information can indeed be found on the page, as reflected in the screenshot below:

I asked Phee if the article was updated at any point to add, remove, or alter any information. He said no. All of the aforementioned information was there from the beginning.

Out of 16 Philippine teams, 12 teams allegedly got disqualified. It’s unclear how many of these teams had the same reasons for not turning up for their matches. Based on the conversation between these parties, however, it seems there were actually only six teams that did not turn up.