Why Grubby and Moon missed the playoffs

Photos by: readmore.de (Grubby) and Fragster.de (Moon)

It is a major difference winning a game with 2-0 or 2-1. That's a statement Grubby and Moon can sign under in bold after last night's second group stage.

The first group stage managed to swing by without any need to bring forth the rulebook to determine which player should advance. But the second group stage which started at 03:00 today, included three 'tie-breaker' situations.

Group A housed Sky, WhO, Grubby and HasuObs. When all six matches were played, all but HasuObs were left with 6 points each. Grubby, who had defeated WhO with a 2-1 score, was by common belief to advance, but due to having the worst map scores by the tied participants, he failed to advance. Instead we saw, WhO move to the playoffs together with Sky.

Moon suffered the same fate as his team mate Grubby. Group C had ToD, Moon and ReiGn all on six points when the rounds finished. The Korean Undead player ReiGn emerged on top of his group, winning against Moon with a 2-0 score and grabbing a map score in his match against ToD. While Moon defeated ToD with a 2-1 score, it was not enough for the "fifth race".

The last tie-breaker issue was located in Group D, where the race for second place turned into a gridlock. Chinese Undead TED had already secured first place by defeating all his opponents, but SoJu, HoT and Lyn were all tied on 3 points. While the reigning champion SoJu defeated his team mate Lyn in the first round, he was unable to advance as he lost to HoT and Lyn had taken out HoT with a 2-0 score.

Should the tie-breaker had ended where the players had the same map scores, then the next step would be to count the score difference obtained in all the group matches, not just the ones one the same points. Should that still be a tie, then tie-breaker matches would be played.

Fan reactions were very upset and hateful not wanting to understand the rules. Accusations that the ESWC organization were biased towards ToD due to ESWC being French-based were voiced. But all ESWC did was follow the rules that have been official for a long while prior to the grand final.