Regarding what happened in the Quarter-Final bewteen Hokej and Ledger, just gonna actually give some clarifications about my decision aswell as some background story for those who were not on the server at the time. Couldn't post earlier since FSE was down.
On the Hokej-Ledger Incident
Hokej had a duel versus Desant before, which, despite the score (5-0), took a really long time. So basically when Hokej and Ledger started playing their quarter-final match, most of the other matches were already close to be finished (except LeBrave versus Max1muS which took a bit longer). They had a long first round that Ledger won, but still acceptable, and after that, Hokej simply started to do what he is famous for, hence basically doing upstabs only, extremly long and unnecessary holds, and lots lots lots of blocking. After 15min of this, and the score still being 1-0, I told both of them to actually start playing. They continued to remain extremly passive for another good 10-20 mins, just sometimes not even fighting and simply looking at eachothers passively and this despite a few other warnings. I took the time to consider all the options I had and after already 3hs of a good but tiring tournament, I decided to disqualify both of them, as they both played the exact same way and I had not a single reason to disqualify one player but not the other, given none of them made a single effort to try playing differently. We discussed with Haze and ExtaaZz and given both are good friends, I saw no reason not to allow them playing the final at a later stage which both were fine with, as it was already getting rather late for everyone.
This actually sets a precedent, as I believe not a single person had been disqualified due to their 'playstyle' in a duel tournament before. However let this be known. I'm hosting a duel tournament to offer people an opportunity to prove their talent, enjoy both playing and watching other good players fight but certainly not to encourage someone to sit in front of his computer for litteraly dozen of hours in order to get a chance to earn some E-fame. At the end of the day it remains a game which you're supposed to enjoy. Yes, the NW mechanics are rather simple which can lead to such situations but there is a clear difference bewteen being a good but rather passive player and making up for your lack of overall skills by refusing to take a single risk, and basically just blocking all the time. What Hokej is doing, isn't asking any sort of particular skill, just a lot of patience. Anyone can do it, including myself. Most of the players however do play this game because they love it and are not even remotely interest into ruinning it like Hokej does.
I also make a clear difference between Ledger and Hokej because Ledger has played other duels were he wasn't passive to such extreme. Ledger simply didn't want to give up that easily so he decided to play the exact same way his opponent was doing, while knowing it could potentially lead to an endless duel. I respect Ledger both as a player and as a person, but in that particular situation, I had no choice but to disqualify him aswell. However to prevent such things from happening again, I decided to not accept Hokej for any future 1v1 tournament I might host. The game ain't fixing itself, so it must be the community role to actually step-up and refuse to accept playing against or with people wich by their in-game behaviour and because they're eager to prove themselve to an online community, are fine with ruining a game we all enjoy. I do understand this a decision which some people could disagree with, and I'm aware banning a player because his playstyle is cancerous isn't an actual solution. But as I said, since NW mechanics are way too easy to abuse due to their simplicity, I do not have an other solution I find satisfying. If you're actually capable to spend a whole day or night sitting in front of your computer (because Hokej made it clear to me on steam he had absolutely no problem playing the whole day if it was necessary) to watch and referee this mess, then I will let you host the next 1v1 with joy. As far as I'm concerned, I have other standards which I aim to developp in my tournament.
As for the challonge, since the tournament has to continue, I was forced to pick a winner, so that's why Ledger is seen getting the default over Hokej. But they actually got both disqualified. I wanted to explain the situation because I like to have as much transparancy as possible as admin, not to create any drama or starts a hate-train on a certain player. So please, remain respectful in your comments, no matter if you agree or disagree with the decision I came up with.
I also don't want people to believe that because of this single issue, the tournament wasn't good. I had a lot of fun hosting it, it was really great to have so many people (almost a hundred, not bad for a 'dead game') and I want to thank every one of you for attending. Really made me happy and also got myself some confidence back after the unfortunate turn of events during the last 1v1 EU Event I hosted, some years ago, which caused the tournament not to happen. I received a lot of positive feedbacks after the event so I'm confident the event was quite appreciated aswell.
Also thanks to my amazing referee team, Lone, Sleek, Krytenn, Harford, Kennedy, Messius, Nero, Raii, which all did a fantastic work, getting the tournament to run as smoothly as possible. Nothing would have been possible without those guys and its quite a positive feeling to get to work with mature, serious and respectful people like you. Hope I can get you guys back for the next event, would ensure it to have the same level of professionalism this one had.
A big reason why we got the tournament to work that well was also the fact we had two servers, thanks to John Price, the 18e leader, and BigRedOne, a former NW french player. Price took care of the situation while not being at home and Pluto (his second in command) also helped me a lot setting up the server while Price wasn't reachable. And BRO offered me a 200 slot servers, two or three hours before the event starts, getting it ready in the blink of an eye since Maharbaal had some issues with the 85e server. Those guys are absolute top lads, so glad I could count on them.
The tournament isn't obviously over yet, and the final is set-up for Friday Evening. (Might change, will let you guys know in any case if some people want to watch it, I will make sure to record it anyways). I tried to prioritize the players preferences to pick the day for the final, as I don't think many players really care about the result (Haze or ExtaaZz winning). But on what is going to happen next, I don't know yet. I don't think I will host a tournament before the summer holidays, nor during. There are enough tournament about to start (the 6v6 hosted by Kore, the 5v5 by MightyPain) in June, and the NWGFL and the NWWC still going on for some weeks. And summer break ain't a good time for tournament, atleast to my eyes.
On the format, I'm pretty sure it won't be a 1v1. Not because of what happened but because I think its good to try to space out those events as much as possible. People are starting to feel a bit tired of the French Superiority in 1v1 or 2v2 and while I would be tempted to tell them its just about spending much more times in order to beat them, I also agree with the comment Maurice made a while ago about this. The game is getting older and older as the days go and if we don't want more people to continue leaving, its important we try to get some real competitions going, and just not have the same people winning tournament in a row. No disrespect to ExtaaZz, Haze or LeBrave, which are without a doubt three of the greatest duelist player of all times, but their opponents actually don't necesseraly have the time or willingness to spend as much time as they do on the game anymore. Not having Axiom and Tiberias to sign-up was actually a hit to the tournament quality in term of players. same with Clash signing-up but sadly not being able to attend. Not much I can personally do, but if I was to host another 1v1 tournament soon, I think we would end-up seeing the exact same result.
tltr ; Thanks all for joining and for your trust, see you in September / November hopefully for another tournament (Not 1v1 tho).
