You know what you don’t want to be caught doing only weeks after New Zealand officially recognised esports as an official sport, and in a period where esports is getting more attention than ever? Throwing Rocket League matches.
The match on April 5 was part of the US$105,000 LPL Pro Rocket League Oceanic Championship, currently the biggest Rocket League tournament going around. It’s meant to help determine the best Rocket League teams across Oceania, and is one of the biggest ongoing local tournaments right now.
Team Esper, sitting towards the bottom half of the standings, were facing off against Fury in the last game of the regular season. Most of the bracket was clumped together on four or five wins, so one win would have had a massive impact on the final standings.
Esper went 2-0 up in the series, which was a good start since they needed a 3-0 or 3-1 win to finish make the playoffs. Fury made a comeback, however, which made the final match a mathematical irrelevance for Esper: they could win, but they wouldn’t make it into the playoffs as per the tiebreak rules.
And it was the fifth game where things started getting weird. At the initial kick off, the Esper players just avoided the ball entirely, leading the commentators to openly question whether Esper was throwing the game outright.
Just in case it wasn’t sus enough, Esper ended the fifth match with a patently blatant own goal, one that left the commentators speechless.
Viewers and fans immediately lobbied the organisers to investigate. Before that investigation was completed, however, Team Esper announced that the players involved had been dropped. “Our time with them has drawn to a close,” the team said hours after the conclusion of the match.
A huge thanks to our Rocket League players for their hard work this season.
Our time with them has drawn to a close, and we wish them all the best in the future.
Hope to return shortly! pic.twitter.com/7zPIlrZrY1
— Team Esper (@TeamEsper) April 5, 2020
The incident attracted the international attention of the Rocket League community, with an official FC Barcelona Rocket League player calling on the trio to be banned completely.
.@RLEsports in my opinion as a pro player, and for almost everyone in the community. I would like to see @SSteveRL @dellfyre and @Frenzyy_RL banned. This is disrespectful towards the scene, the community and the game.
1/2
— Ronaky (@RonakyRL) April 5, 2020
Early Wednesday morning, the organisers of the Rocket League Oceanic Championship announced that two of the former Esper players, delusioN and Frenzyy, had been banned for a full year. “After a thorough investigation, we have determined that Oceanic RLCS players delusioN and Frenzyy (formerly of Team Esper) deliberately compromised competitive integrity in order to lose Game 5 of their team’s series against Team Fury,” LPL announced.
The full investigation looked at the game’s match logs, and after co-ordinating with developers Psyonix, LPL concluded that the two players – but not SSteve, the third player of the team – deliberately threw the final match. The ban means the players won’t be able to take part in not only any tournaments run by Rocket League developers Psyonix, but any tournaments – for any games – run by LPL.
Frenzyy and delusioN’s actions during their match on April 5, 2020 NZT violated the Player’s Code of Conduct found in Section 7 of the Official Rules: https://www.rocketleagueesports.com/rules/. Upon inspection of chat logs, game footage, and an in-depth conversation between LetsPlay.Live and Psyonix, we have determined that these players compromised competitive integrity by intentionally throwing Game 5 of their match against Team Fury. As a result both Frenzyy and delusioN will be banned from all Psyonix-operated and/or LPL-operated tournaments until April 7, 2021.
Relevant rule: Section 7.2 states, “7.2 Competitive Integrity”:
7.2.1 Each Player is expected to play to the best of her or his ability at all times during any match. Any form of unfair play is prohibited by these Rules, and may result in disciplinary action. Examples of unfair play include the following:
Collusion (e.g., any agreement between two or more Teams or Players on different Teams to pre-determine the outcome of a Game or Match), match fixing, bribing a referee or match official, or any other action or agreement to intentionally influence (or attempt to influence) the outcome of any match or Tournament.”
Additional details on disciplinary actions can be found in Section 8 of the Official Rules: https://www.rocketleagueesports.com/rules/.
Championship standings remain unchanged, as agreed by both Psyonix and LPL.
“This type of behaviour is completely unacceptable and will not be taken lightly,” LPL said.
The morale of the story: don’t throw matches. Ever. Even when the match isn’t worth it.
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