Old G loses Closed Qualifier slot due to violations against PGL’s rules of conduct

Old G has to start from scratch in Tour 3 DPC.

PGL, the tournament organizer for Western Europe Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) imposed a penalty against Old G due to violation of rules of conduct. As a result, Old G loses its spot in the Closed Qualifier. The veteran, all-star stack will have to compete in the Open Qualifiers to participate in Tour 3 DPC.

The Division II qualifier for WEU DPC begins in a week. Old G has to start from scratch with their current members: Volodymyr "No[o]ne-" Minenko, Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, Roman "Resolut1on" Fomynok, Sébastien "Ceb" Debs, and Kartik "Kitrak" Rathi.

UPDATE: Old G acquired PuckChamp's DPC slot and will participate in Division II for the next Tour.

PGL removes Old G from the WEU DPC Closed Qualifier

Ahead of Tour 3 DPC, PGL posted an announcement to inform a penalty imposed against Old G. The post stated that an Old G member had violated PGL's rules of conduct by threatening PGL admins and exposing them to public harassment. This situation happened when PGL was informing Old G regarding their inevitable forfeit in Tour 2 DPC.

One of Old G's members violated our rules of conduct by threatening members of the admin team and exposing them to public harassment. We take harassment seriously in our rules, and as a penalty, Old G will forfeit their spot in the Summer Tour Closed Qualifiers and will have to go through Open Qualifiers.

PGL

Old G's violation of rules - what happened?

In Tour 2 DPC, Old G was scheduled to play a crucial tiebreaker to keep their position in Division II. However, during the same time as the tiebreakers, two OId G players, Resolut1on and Kitrak, were playing as stand-ins for Berlin Major teams.

There was no solution to this situation as PGL's rulebook only allowed one stand-in. This forced Old G to forfeit and give up their DPC slot with no chance of contesting.

Ceb's Twitter rant might have caused Old G to lose its Closed Qualifier slot.<br>Image via EPICENTER
Ceb's Twitter rant might have caused Old G to lose its Closed Qualifier slot.
Image via EPICENTER

Old G's player, Ceb, wasn't happy with PGL's actions. The two-time TI winner took to Twitter to voice his frustrations against the tournament organizer.

"Two players standing in to help out Major teams, not allowed to reschedule a game scheduled same time as Major to keep our slot for div 2, not allowed to use two standins -- (pglesports) (@AnekoMerkki) very fun stuff, provided 0 care/ help besides stating the rules over & over again." Ceb posted, tagging the official Twitter of PGL and a PGL admin's account.

Even though PGL didn't specify which member violated the rules and what they particularly did, we can assume that Ceb's Tweet was the one that cost them the penalty. Ceb had tagged a member of the PGL admin team. This fell in line with PGL's post that mentioned the act of exposing a PGL admin to public harassment.

There is no response from Old G as of now.

Another ride in the Open Qualifiers?

In DPC, eliminated Div II teams are placed in the Closed Qualifiers and have a slight edge compared to OQ teams. While Open Qualifier is a single-elimination bracket, Closed Qualifier provides a double-elimination format with more chances to qualify.

By default, Old G is supposed to play in the Closed Qualifiers. However, the penalty demotes them. If Old G wants to join the DPC in the next Tour, they'll have to play the brutal Open Qualifiers for the third time this season.

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