LGD.cn versus Na`Vi in the winners bracket finals of the Alienware Cup was one of the most anticipated matches of the tournament and the match was tied at 1-1. The deciding game was a drawn out game lasting more than 70 minutes and a lot of back and forth was involved but with a Roshan kill and Aegis in hand, Na`Vi pushed mid and halfway through the crucial battle, Sylar from LGD paused the game, stating that DD's computer had crashed. Once unpaused, LGD went on to win the battle, and now Na`Vi's fans are up in arms with pitchforks over alleged game-changing pause.
Personally, I was rather torn on which side of the fence I should sit on and therefore, launched a small investigation on whether the battle was indeed over when the pause occurred.
So, I downloaded the replay and watched the whole fight thrice in 0.25x speed and I do have to agree with the Chinese fans that the fight was rather over the second Xiao8 pulled off the second RP on four.
In LGD's official statement about the pause, LGD claimed that they are currently not in Hangzhou and had to play the game from a net cafe. I verified this with my source and what they said is in fact the truth and that may be the source for complication. This can be further proven by LGD's pause at 70:10 - one minute before the battle - where Sylar stated "bei tan le" as the game resumes, meaning that he clicked on a pop-up and he was most possibly tabbed out. Assuming that they play from home, this problem probably would not have appeared considering all players or at least professional ones should have turned off this function one way or another. In any case, this is just my assumption and I think it's believable.
Moving on to the "tactical pause", as I mentioned above, I have watched the replay many times and this is what I see from my perspective:
71:20 - Weaver's Aegis was popped. At the same time, Magnus blinked in and used RP on Shadow Fiend. Magnus used BKB.
71:22 - Magnus Skewer'ed Shadow Fiend into the middle of his team. Dragon Knight and Gyrocopter used their BKBs.
71:25 - Weaver revived, Chen walked into the battlefield with Ghost Scepter while Lina walked in and took a lot of damage from Gyrocopter. Magnus re-positioning for second RP.
71:26 - Magnus blew second RP on four, Weaver narrowly escaped.
71:30 - Magnus repositions for second Skewer. Pause happened and Lina is at 449 hp.
71:31 - Magnus Skewer'ed DK, Lina and Chen. Lina has 6 HP left after Skewer.
71:33 - Lina EB'd Bounty Hunter. Lina and Shadow Fiend died. Chen died shortly after.
71:39 - DK got lifted and was about to die.
Then, I double checked and watched the game from Rubick's (DD) perspective. One second before the pause, Rubick's mouse actually stopped moving for a good one second before Sylar paused the game. It moved slightly, right before the pause signifying that he was indeed lagging.
I would nominate KuroKy's Lina as the biggest victim to the pause but judging from the screenshots above, he was already taking too much damage from the Flak Cannon before he got RP'd to begin with. There was no way he could have somehow dodged the Skewer and in fact, the pause helped him get the Ethereal Blade off on Bounty Hunter. If he was to Laguna before the EB, he would have died to Magnus or Rubick's right click before Lina's Laguna animation ended.
I highly doubt the outcome of the fight would have changed otherwise, although I still have to admit that it is highly unethical that LGD paused halfway through the battle. I don't think we can blame them for this either, considering the Rubick is a big part of their win against Na`Vi.
The game is over, keep calm and play more Dota 2.
A quick look at Alienware Cup's rules on their website showed that there weren't any rules pertaining to pauses made by players halfway during a crucial fight. The only rules I found about pauses are the following:
1.4.5 Every player should have a backup place to play on in case they lose the ability to reconnect to the match (power outage/internet loss). Inability to reconnect into the game is never grounds for match postponement. Admins will extend the pause time in order to allow a player to move to a different location if that happens, within reason.
1.4.6 Teams are responsible to take appropriate measures for their own internet and personal computer security.
"Ambiguity in a contract benefits the party that did not draft it," therefore, LGD's pause is legit. However, this could pave way for future pause abuses and I personally hope that some rule or solution get enforced before it happens.
