Hi all!
I'd like to start with an apology to anyone who thought I was refereeing in a bias manner or not enforcing the rules to the best of my abilities - I sincerely consider myself one of the least bias people possible to referee in leagues like NANWL. I have never knowingly acted in a bias manner with ill intention. To the 6teSLR members and others who are frustrated with my decisions I made during the match, I ask you to read this with an open mind and consider the perspective of the referee.
Let's start with the second round of the match. The LG had cut off an officer AND a ranker from the 6te line. These two members must attempt to rejoin their line, whilst avoiding the LG line. However, the LG clearly blocked their path back to their line, at which point they stopped making a real attempt at getting back to their line and in my eyes became rambos. It is at this point where I made my first mistake in this round by not slaying the two 6te members who were cut off from the rest of their line. In an ideal world I would have recognized they could not return to their line and slain them, but I digress. In my opinion as a referee, the act of ramboing is what breaks the LG line as they attempt to kill the rambos. It is while these two members, one of them being an officer, are ramboing that the 6te begin shooting at the broken LG line. I recognize this by putting a message in purple admin chat, saying that the 6te may NOT shoot while their members are ramboing away from their line. I then state (while nobody has shot since my first message) that both lines are in melee when the officer (Irish) draws his sword and begins attacking the LG members who are chasing him. Once the rambos have been killed the 6te begins firing once more, believing that since they are no longer in melee they can shoot, per the rules allowing. However, it is at this point I made a judgement call and said that the 6te should not be allowed to shoot the LG line because they are still recovering from the effect of two rambos breaking their line, directly leading to me slaying a member of the 6te and stating "FoC" in purple text. I then state again "6te stop shooting". A moment after I restate 6te stop shooting, I slay Nr8 Batista for firing at the 6te and not being in line. Then, as the two lines meet I am able to find 6te Rune in the slay list and slay him for shooting and killing after I had told the 6te to stop shooting, and the round continues and ends as a normal round. The result of my judgement call: I slayed two 6te members, and one slay on an LG member for unrelated FoC.
This leads directly to the controversy in the fourth round which was very similar, with a few key differences. Only an officer was cut off (Rafael) and the entire LG line breaks to follow him. It is at this point where I state that if Rafael is not attempting to rejoin his line he is ramboing, as was the case with the earlier round. Rafael quickly turns to fight, and I make a mistake in not slaying the ramboing officer instantly as he turns and fights. Another key difference in the fifth round is that after Rafael is killed, the LG has a full ten seconds to recover from the effects of the ramboing and are no longer broken. Their line reforms and I type in admin chat confirming that the 6te may shoot at the LG line, since it is no longer broken from a rambo.
Thus is the key difference between rounds two and four. In round two, the LG line had not recovered from illegal rambos, and thus I ruled that the 6te may not shoot them. In round five, the LG line had been given time to reform from an illegal rambo and it was fair game. The hesitation for slays on my part comes from the rambos being officers (with the exception of the ranker in round two).
The final controversy which has been brought to my attention is the use of all chat and non-equal enforcement. This one is pretty easy, as just watching through the videos you can see whether or not members used it and were slain. I have a few comments about the enforcement of all chat as a whole. Midnight from the 6teSLR requested to me that all chat be banned for non-officers, and Midnight being an officer in the 6te I take that as legitimate. I announce the use of no all chat at the start of the round right after Midnight requested it, and slay Vetro right off for intentionally typing in all chat in direct violation of the request. The next person to type in all chat is Wastee, who types "a" which per the rules is excusable and he is an officer of his regiment. It is at this point that I will say as a referee it has always been my stance that messages typed after the end of a round or messages that were clearly meant to be typed before the start of the next round are not in violation of the no all chat rule, and YES, I understand that is a controversial stance in of itself, but it has been consistent with my refereeing for all 1v1s, league or not, that I have refereed. The next person to speak is from the 6te saying "specs come in" so I do not slay despite it being in all chat. At the start of the eighth round, when the LG won it's 6th overall round, a number of people said "gg" but a few people said things that were not okay. I missed Nr8 ReyMysterio (Yoshie) because Yoshie is an officer, however Pedro joining in and typing was in blatant violation of a number of rules, directly leading to him being temp-banned on his repeated offense. A few 6te members then complained about the all chat ban, which I did not slay for because it was legitimate. I missed a slay on Nr8 Zappy in the melee for saying "wheelchair boi" and also missed the slay on 6te Spartan for saying "yo where the team at" as they happened in melee and I did not see the messages in time to slay. Multiple 6te members asked for Pedro to be slain for typing in white chat, despite him not being allowed to play at all (which he did not play in any rounds outside of spawning, typing, and going back to spec) and it is at the start of this round where I temp-banned Pedro. When it comes to the end of this round, multiple LG members and the final remaining 6te member type in all chat, which I excuse as it is the last person, however I could've slain two members of the LG and Spartan had the strictest ruling been enforced. As peoples messages start flooding into the start of the next round, I put a reminder that all chat is okay AFTER the round but not during. After this reminder, I slay ReyMysterio for intentionally and with ill intention typing in all chat, despite his status as an officer. Nr8 Zappy and Nr8 Fartknocker then type in "63e logic" which I excuse, although I could've slain them for, but in the melee their effect was not out of line with the significant advantage rule.
That brings to a wrap all the complains and issues I have heard tossed around the league, it's much easier to explain in voice and I will be very open and happy to talk to anyone who wants to talk about the match. As of now, I am still convinced that I have done the best I could in the circumstances of the match.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and please reach out of I did not address something.
Reference videos for your own viewing:
Dan the Chef, Xaverian, Maniac (since taken down), and Glenn
