Fart Studios were forced into a forfeit loss after the first game of their series against SKG due to becoming ineligible.
Fart Studios, a roster made up of North American Dota personalities and pros, has been forced to forfeit its matches in DPC NA 2022 Tour 2: Div II. The forfeit reportedly came because three of its roster were out of the country during the match, making them ineligible to compete in the NA DPC.
The team, consisting of Brian “BSJ” Canavan, Andrew “Jenkins” Jenkins, Jason “Newsham” Newsham, Jaron “monkeys-forever” Clinton, and Danny “iAnnihilate” Cote, was scheduled to play Sand King Gómez on April 10, as part of Week 1 of the Division II lineup. However, after playing and losing their first game to SKG, Fart Studios was DQ’d when administrators for tournament organizers PGL discovered three members of their stack were not currently in North America.
Both BSJ and Jenkins are currently in Berlin, as part of the on-site studio cast for DreamLeague Season 19. Reportedly, iAnnihilate was playing from Brazil. This, according to PGL, meant that all three of them were now ineligible to play in the NA DPC due to not residing in the country.
This was initially unreported by PGL, and instead, it was left for the players to clarify the situation.
Related articles
Enforcing the letter of the law, not the spirit of the rules.
The forced Fart Studios forfeit instantly got under the skin of community members, and outspoken Gaimin Gladiators mid laner Quinn Callahan.
Quinn, who has before been critical of teams such as B8, a team with no native NA players, competing in the NA DPC, hit out at PGL for being “letter of the law cringelords.”
According to the PGL rulebook: “For a team to be eligible to compete in a region, 3 or more players MUST be physically located in the region in which they are competing.” This means, when three members of Fart Studios left NA temporarily, they became ineligible.
But Quinn, and many others, point out that this rule was altered in the most recent 2023 season to allow teams with players from other regions to compete. In the 2020 edition of the rules, the rules stated: “For a team to be eligible to participate in a region, 3 or more of the players need to reside in the area they are competing in.” Under these rules, a number of current Div I and Div II teams, from multiple regions, wouldn’t have been eligible.
Now, a rule change that was made to allow team’s more flexibility with rosters, is being used to punish a team of casters and community favorites for traveling. It’s definitely not the spirit in which the rule was introduced. And PGL will likely feel some more backlash before this is resolved. Although, maybe this FF is worth it to get a tournament organizer to have to tweet the name "Fart Studios" out on their main account.
