This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/RedstoneRusty on 2024-03-16 14:55:21.
Two weeks ago, an RLCS team named Young Money Clan (YMC) consisting of the English players Reeho, Nuqqet, and Little Motion, were banned from participating in the remainder of an RLCS tournament as well as any tournament for the next year because they intentionally lost multiple series in order to manipulate their seed in the playoff bracket. This was in an effort to try to steal a spot at the upcoming major tournament.
What is the RLCS?
Since 2015, the RLCS has gone through many different format iterations. First, it was a system where North America and Europe would select their best 8 teams and have them qualify to the world championship through a league play, with the top 4 teams from each region qualifying to the LAN. Then in season 3 (2016), Oceania was added and they would select their top 2 teams. Then in season 7 (2019), South America was added and they would select their top 2 teams as well.
The Dark Times
In early 2020, season 9 of the RLCS was underway and the world championship was scheduled to take place in Dallas. Then COVID happened and the world championship was cancelled. For the next few years, in order to combat the lull in the esport that would happen with no LANs, Psyonix (the developers of Rocket League) decided to overhaul the whole system. Season 10 became season X. There would be no more league play, instead, there would be a new system of splits. The Fall split, Winter split, and Spring split would each have 3 regional tournaments allowing teams to not only collect prize money every event, but they would also collect circuit points, which they need to qualify for each split’s major tournament and ultimately the world championship. We didn’t know it at the time, but for season X, these majors would all still be held online, and so would the world championship, due to COVID still existing.
Regional Struggles
For season 2021-2022 (yes that is the actual naming convention), there were big changes, mostly for “minor regions”. Middle East/North Africa, Asia Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa were all added to the RLCS framework and they would all get their own professional productions for their streams. Most importantly, LANs were back baby! The first LAN was in Stockholm, Sweden, and consisted of 5 teams from NA, 5 from EU, 2 from OCE, 2 from SAM, 1 from MENA, and 1 from APAC. But wait, what happened to SSA? Well, they only get a spot at the world championship because ??? These regional spots were the same throughout the season. It was the same thing in the following season, 2022-2023.
For the 2024 season (ah yes, that’s better), there was a 5 month off-season and with it, massive changes. I won’t go into too much detail about them because that could be its own post. The important ones for this story are that SSA would now get a spot at the majors and there would no longer be any barrier for teams to compete in regions that they don’t live in. In previous seasons, there had been multiple teams who migrated from their home countries to other regions in order to compete in a more competitive region and get better at the game. There had also been notable examples of the other way, going to a less competitive region in order to get free wins.
Young Money Clan
Reeho, Nuqqet, and Little Motion, are English rocket league players. Reeho and Little Motion had previously attempted to qualify for a couple of regionals in Europe, but were eliminated. They are what we call bubble players. They are good enough to make solid runs in qualifiers but they are nowhere near the level of top teams in their region. They saw the rule changes in the 2024 season as an opportunity. No longer would they be eliminated in qualifiers for a region they stand no chance in. They decided to just compete in Sub-Saharan Africa. This meant that they would be competing with about 160 ping, a massive disadvantage. Most players would call anything above 100 completely unplayable. However, YMC managed to not only qualify for the first regional, they came 2nd. And then they came 2nd in the following regional as well. The only team that was consistently able to beat them was called Limitless.
Because Limitless had won both regionals, they had a big lead in points. Limitless had 32 points and YMC only had 24. That meant that if Limitless could get top 4 in the 3rd regional, they would secure their spot in the major. YMC knew this and decided that now was their time to strike, so they flew down to Reunion island in order to compete in the final regional with more competitive ping. But that alone wouldn’t guarantee them the win. There was only one way to make sure Limitless didn’t make it to top 4. YMC had to manipulate their seeding to meet Limitless in the quarter-finals.
The Format
Ok, time to get a little technical. The regional format is a swiss stage with the top 16 teams, which decides the seeding for the single-elimination top 8 bracket. If you don’t know how swiss works, basically if you win 3 series, you’re into the top 8. If you lose 3 series, you’re eliminated. It’s a really good way to separate out the top 8 teams without making everyone play everyone. The important part is that game differential matters a lot. It determines which team you will play against in the following rounds.
On Friday, March 1st, the regional 3 swiss was played. For the first 2 rounds, everything went the same as always. Limitless and YMC both found themselves in the 2-0 matches for round 3, but they weren’t playing each other. In round 3, Limitless swept their series. YMC had a bit of a delay in starting but then they won the first game 6-2. Then it all happened. They lost the next 3 games, losing that series, then they got swept in round 4. Then after another big delay, they swept round 5, securing their place as 7th seed in the top 8 bracket. So what happened? Basically, YMC saw Limitless qualify with 2nd seed in the bracket and then immediately started trying to manipulate their own seed to be 7th, since those seeds play each other for top 4. Here are some montages of what that gameplay looked like:
Anyone who has seen these players in the past month knows that this is blatant throwing and the motivation was clear from the start. The delay’s were happening because YMC wanted to see the outcome of the other series to determine how many games they needed to lose for the right seed.
Before YMC even got the chance to play against Limitless in the quarter-final match they tried so hard to get, all 3 players were disqualified from the rest of the event and given a year-long ban not just from the RLCS, but from any rocket league competition. More here:
Because YMC were the only team that could have overtaken Limitless in the points standings, their disqualification meant that Limitless immediately qualified to the upcoming major in Copenhagen.
What Did We Learn?
The consensus among the Rocket League community about this is pretty simple. YMC were villains in this story from the start. If they wanted to take this spot away from SSA the “right way”, they would have spent the entire split in the region, populating the ranked servers with better talent. A rising tide lifts all boats after all and having this team in the region would have given the other teams way better practice. Even if YMC made that decision before the 3rd regional, they could have gone and won that regional fairly and Limitless would have qualified for the major. Then next split, YMC could have won all 3 regionals and qualified for the next major and the world championship.
Note: This is a repost because I wasn’t aware of the 14 days rule the first time around. Now that amount of time has passed.