Approximately 9 months ago, we began the Regional Qualifiers to prepare for a World Cup Tournament which we envisioned to be unique and competitive. We moved from one region to another and invited many top teams that were qualified. However, many teams have disbanded and by the time we reached the World Cup Tournament, players in previous teams have joined new teams.

It was then that we understood that the mobile FPS community was still in its youth and that flexibility needs to implemented in order to keep teams alive. There was a lot of confusion as to how the World Cup will proceed following the case with Theocracy & GankStars. While we provided potential solutions, we promised that we will go and check the lineups of previous teams in order to come up with a final decision.

Having collected all the information by now, we now have reached a final and fair decision as to how the World Cup will proceed. First of all, after checking the lineups of all teams, we see no reason to redo matches from previous rounds due to the fact that majority of the teams used players that were in other teams.

The teams that have advanced thus far have all their members approved by us even though they were in previous teams. They all sent their lists to our email and we can confirm that they were approved. Initially, people assumed that teams like GankStars have broken the rules due to Rule 7 saying, ”Players that are participating in two different teams in the same tournament may be banned from future tournaments and their teams may be disqualified.”

However, people failed to read our other rules. For example, Rule 8 says that, ”In a tournament with qualifiers, the team list of the qualifier also applies to the main tournament. The team list of those qualified can only be changed before the World Cup for justifiable reasons, and only if we allow an exception to be made.”

Rule 8 allows us to make exceptions for teams that need to recruit players which we have done so for GankStars, Team Phoenix, Redemption, and many others that have lost members and needed players to play for them. Therefore, the teams that have used players which were approved by us have not broken the rules.

Furthermore, Rule 4 adds that, ”The list of players cannot be changed after the start of the tournament unless you have reported your issue to our staff and we found justifiable reasons to make an exception.” In addition, we retain the right to make exceptions and edit our rules as Rule 7 clearly states: ”We reserve the right to edit the rules and disqualify teams for reasons not stated in this list or take other action.”

Having gone through all the lineups, team registrations, rules, and all the information we gathered, we see no issue with the teams that used players from teams that have already been disbanded or have lost as long as these teams have been approved by us. Having said that in the light of the aforementioned information, GankStars, like many other teams, have had their team lineup approved.

As for Theocracy, our main issue was that they used a player that was initially banned from our tournaments but we have come to the conclusion that they were not aware of him being banned. While we did share this information on our social media, we did not add an official statement on our website and they are not fully to be blamed for using that player but we also take responsibility for not making it clearer in the past on our website.

Knowing what we know now after this thorough investigation, our final decision is that Theocracy will rematch GankStars but with Theocracy adding a fourth player that is eligible to play and is approved by us. Then we can have the two Semi-Finalists rematch and the winner will face Redemption in the Finals.

In conclusion, we first want to apologize for rushing to statements before having a full investigation taking place. There were too many people that demanded answers and we did our best to address the situation with what we knew then. While we offered potential solutions we also added that we will investigate the full lineups of the teams in order to come to a final and fair decision.

Having investigated all the teams and went through the rules, we see no violation of rules on GankStars’ part or any other team that had their lineup approved. As for Theocracy, we will allow them to rematch due to them not knowing that the player was temporarily banned but this was our responsibility to make it clear on our website.

Based on your feedback we have learned a lot and will make sure that moving forward we will add more regulations to prevent mistakes like these happening. For example, rules like not changing your name during the duration of a tournament will be introduced soon. The World Cup experienced this issue due to it being a unique tournament and has been in the process for almost 9 months.

Teams were acquired, clans disbanded, players joined and rejoined teams, teams had arguments among themselves and left. A lot has happened, and our mobile community is still young and evolving. We hope that our decision is clear and that you understand the reasoning behind it. We would like to improve our tournaments and kindly ask you to share your ideas with us at [email protected]. Thank you for all your support and for being a community we love to be a part of.