Drama steals the spotlight as MLG Columbus gets underway in Ohio, USA. Peruvian team Not Today were significantly delayed in their flights, arriving to the venue late. The team started the tournament by receiving a def-loss against Evil Geniuses for their first game and losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas after being forced to play immediately upon arrival.
Not Today had scheduled their own flights, arriving the day of the tournament, something that is already not preferable for a competing team. Although the flight times had allowed for them to be present on time, significant delays incurred – quite common in the airline industry.
It seems that originally the administrators of the tournament had rescheduled Not Today for Saturday morning, in order to accommodate the situation, something the team was grateful for and acknowledged on their Facebook page:
Our connecting flight from Houston to Columbus had a 5-hour delay, thus the game that was supposed to be underway at this very moment had to be postponed. We would like to thank the MLG Columbus organizers for rescheduling all our remaining games. We will start our first game tomorrow, at 10 am, and we’re counting on our fans’ support.
Despite the reschedule that was originally granted to the team, it was later rescinded and resulted in the def-loss to Evil Geniuses. No official statement has been made as to the reason for the change in status. However, a string of tweets give some insight into the situation:
I had nothing to do with the NoT incident. Originally we agreed to reschedule to tomorrow and…
— Peter Dager (@ppdDota) April 11, 2015
Play BBC instead tonight. BBC agreed then changed their mind after their loss to MVP. MLG had no choice except for a def loss because of the
— Peter Dager (@ppdDota) April 11, 2015
Already tight schedule. My condolences to NoT and all of their fans but do not shame my team nor MLG who have been more than accommodating.
— Peter Dager (@ppdDota) April 11, 2015
After receiving the def-loss the Peruvian team was later transported to the venue less than an hour after landing and were notified that they would have to play NiP or receive an additional def-loss.
Honestly it's bloody embarassing to drag a team directly from the airport & force them to play after showing a reschedule earlier in the day
— Matthew Bailey (@Cyborgmatt) April 11, 2015
They literally landed less than an hour ago due to delays and now are being forced to play or receive another default loss.
— Matthew Bailey (@Cyborgmatt) April 11, 2015
While it’s easy for observers and bystanders to hastily judge matters, other large scale tournament organizers, such as Vitalii “V1lat” Volochai from StarLadder, have also weighed in on the debacle:
What the fuck happen at MLG? We had such situations at Starladder like million times. Last one was with C9 and bone7 problems
— Vitalii Volochai (@v1lat) April 11, 2015
Why the heck games were not moved to saturday? Omg..
— Vitalii Volochai (@v1lat) April 11, 2015
Moving On
MLG Columbus will go on tomorrow, wrapping up the Round Robin phase of the tournament. Evil Geniuses and Balkan Bears Coreleone will go up on stage first, followed by Not Today versus Team Empire. Whether the Not Today players can mentally move on and focus on their following matches remains to be seen. For the team’s participation in the Summit 3, the organization might just think about different travel plans.
Full schedule of the next two days of the MLG Columbus event can be found on the official website.
Leave a Reply