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About MTG: it's important to note that there are two kinds of illegal decklists: a deck that is legal in the format but doesn't match your official submitted decklist, and a deck that is not legal in the format (for whatever reason). An illegal decklist doesn't necessarily have any impact on the game because it might still be a legal deck and merely a paperwork error in submitting the list. Or maybe you dropped a card last round, and you're playing a 59-card deck with a random card missing. That random card has no effect on the game because it's random, equivalent to being on the bottom of the deck and never drawn (at least in most cases). But if you show up with a blatantly illegal deck, using cards that aren't legal in the format, I suspect you're going to find yourself DQed for cheating and not just given a game loss.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Sad to hear painting standards are continuing to slide. The entire argument about meta shifts is idiotic by the way. Your basically admitting to having better quality models painted, but because you would rather score higher on battle points you chose to show up with sub standard models, this is the definition of WAAC gaming. Manage your time better and get things painted, or heaven forbid you play with a unit choice that's not currently in the top tier lol.

It's not WAAC. If you've got two armies and one is stronger you take the stronger one to the competition which is built around the idea of taking strong armies to win. At a competition you kind of expect people to play with good lists, especially those who hope to have a chance at winning the competition.

The only way you could change that is to run a secondary competition alongside with an equal half share of the prize pool and accolades which is based around the painting and modelling quality of the whole army. That would give people reason to take higher quality painted models to tournaments; although on the competitive scene it might also put more pressure on them to consider using commissioned painters, which isn't what the hobby wants to encourage.


Note I don't mean that commissioned painters are bad, but at the competitive end you don't want people winning and claiming a prize for painting that is not their own work.

There’s a lot of disagreement over how to hold players to account on here. I’ll throw in my 2 pence as a teacher, as I deal with students trying to push boundaries and get away with things all the time (and this works for adults as much as it does teenagers):

In a school you have a clear behaviour policy, typically starting with a warning then progressively moving through more serious consequences. The key thing is that this is clear, widely disseminated and most importantly - consistently applied. If someone breaks a minor rule they’re warned and they don’t have a leg to stand on as the rules are everywhere, all the time. If is progresses, all the way through to removal etc, again it’s clear. In short, to make enforcing rules easier TOs should make a clear, easy to read set of consequences with clear indications of how they will be applied. Just like in a school, major infractions obviously skip up to more serious consequences - but everyone knowing this is the key. If you do this consistently, you don’t have issues.

Last point. As much as I appreciate the ‘zero tolerance’ for any infraction POV, ultimately if you become too draconian people won’t want to be in that that room and you’ll hurt the relationships you’ve built. Clear, consistent, cool headed approaches to enforcing rules work best.

 Kirasu wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
An illegal list is a bigger deal in 40k as compared to a card game.

Your comment shows you don't really understand how much larger MTG is compared to 40k in a competitive sense, it's not just a "card game". It's a game with $100,000 prizes. 1 card out of 60 is somehow less impactful than 5pts in 2000? 1 card drastically alters the probability of winning.

But cheating has a far bigger swing in either game, 'Pro' Magic cheats make the worst of 40k shenanigans look like mild casual garage misplay

Is it just me or is that statement from the ATC a little strange? One incorrect model, an argument with a judge and they're kicked over a proxy in round 4. No slow play, no abusive language - seems a little excessive punishment or is the statement missing a number of key facts? One player said they only got to T3 and ATC said all their games got to T4 so are players exaggerating or is the official statement poorly constructed ....

 Peregrine wrote:
About MTG: it's important to note that there are two kinds of illegal decklists: a deck that is legal in the format but doesn't match your official submitted decklist, and a deck that is not legal in the format (for whatever reason). An illegal decklist doesn't necessarily have any impact on the game because it might still be a legal deck and merely a paperwork error in submitting the list. Or maybe you dropped a card last round, and you're playing a 59-card deck with a random card missing. That random card has no effect on the game because it's random, equivalent to being on the bottom of the deck and never drawn (at least in most cases). But if you show up with a blatantly illegal deck, using cards that aren't legal in the format, I suspect you're going to find yourself DQed for cheating and not just given a game loss.

https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg3-4/

Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.

 Ordana wrote:
Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.

Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.

Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?

For a first offense? yes, because that is what the rules stipulate.

By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.

Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?

Yes, that's what the rules say. You may not agree with the punishment but the rules are clear. Intent is irrelevant, as far as this rule goes.

That is the main problem with tournament 40k at the moment, I think. There don't seem to be clear, easily enforceable rules with penalties laid out. In order to even begin to deal with potential cheating we need to define what it is, and not in some colloquial "well, y'know, it's sort of like...having a wrong list and...uh...rolling dice badly?" kind of way. We already have standards for list building (2k points, Rule of 3, painting guidelines, etc) but we also need rules for conduct within a game, and not just things covering sportsmanship, but things like dice etiquette, use of wound markers and slow play, for example. Only once we have a decent set of rules for this can we then look at applying penalties.

In most sporting events intent isn't taken into account when rules infractions occur, at least at first. All that matters is an infraction is spotted and the required penalty applied. The MTG rule above is a good example of this. There can be further penalties if the offense is deemed to be more severe or if a player constantly breaks the same rules but I think the most important thing is having something to refer to in the first place that can be enforced.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.

Yeah, because that's definitely comparable to DQing someone for cheating...

 Peregrine wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.

Yeah, because that's definitely comparable to DQing someone for cheating...

Be careful, some players may deliberately invalidate their lists for such an opportunity ...

 Arachnofiend wrote:
By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.

It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.

 Kirasu wrote:


It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.

It’s the (armchair) TOs or tournament’s fault if they invite everyone and their dog to a free-for-everyone, fun gaming weekend, take money from everyone that wants to attend and proceed to turn around and pretend it’s some kind of high level sporting thing going.

Imagine you’re doing a basketball tournament with all tournament attendance rules and requirements as they are for ATC, or Nova, LVO,whatever. Just 40K switched for basketball. Everyone 10 years and up can attend for a few bucks. Proceeds may goto charity as with Nova. Hundreds of participants there to have a good weekend. No tiers,handicap-system or different leagues to separate players.

And than LeBron James shows up, hammers the first two 12-year-olds he’s paired with to pulp for maximum points like it’s for final minutes of an NBA final, cause hey, it’s a tournament and only winning matters, so turning on sociopath-mode is a.o.k. before arguing some obscure regulation in the third round to get his opponent disqualified on a technicality? What do you think would happen?

That’s not how the real world works and as long as that sub-section of the 40K-competitive crowd that pulled this weird Scientology-mind-trick on themselves of fooling themselves into believing that mentality will fly, “because it’s a tournament! Just git god!”, doesn’t change, things’ll continue to deteriorate.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:


It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.

It’s the (armchair) TOs or tournament’s fault if they invite everyone and their dog to a free-for-everyone, fun gaming weekend, take money from everyone that wants to attend and proceed to turn around and pretend it’s some kind of high level sporting thing going.

Imagine you’re doing a basketball tournament with all tournament attendance rules and requirements as they are for ATC, or Nova, LVO,whatever. Just 40K switched for basketball. Everyone 10 years and up can attend for a few bucks. Proceeds may goto charity as with Nova. Hundreds of participants there to have a good weekend. No tiers,handicap-system or different leagues to separate players.

And than LeBron James shows up, hammers the first two 12-year-olds he’s paired with to pulp for maximum points like it’s for final minutes of an NBA final, cause hey, it’s a tournament and only winning matters, so turning on sociopath-mode is a.o.k. before arguing some obscure regulation in the third round to get his opponent disqualified on a technicality? What do you think would happen?

That’s not how the real world works and as long as that sub-section of the 40K-competitive crowd that pulled this weird Scientology-mind-trick on themselves of fooling themselves into believing that mentality will fly, “because it’s a tournament! Just git god!”, doesn’t change, things’ll continue to deteriorate.

So, an event I’m at soon, has all the lists (well practically all) of them already loaded on the BCP app. 70 players in total. I’ve gone through all of them bits at a time and out of the 67 viewable lists I’ve picked up on 5 lists with errors in them – and that’s without doing a full in depth dive in. It’s not taken me a lot of time to go through them either.

Some of the mistakes are easy to fix and genuine mistakes like missing off the selected <regiment> or counting CP totals wrong, but others seem to have genuine points costs wrong (one list is like 29 points over 2000) and another is running a battalion but only taking 1 HQ.

I get that list building can be convoluted at times, especially with soup lists, but, having an incorrect list is 100% on the player submitting it, but also a responsibility lies with the TO to arrange ways for the lists to get checked and then the opponent to do a quick scan at the start of the game.

The issue then comes when something gets picked up in game mid event, that was missed throughout the entire pre-event checking etc. It then becomes an issue of “Intentional or not?”, which, is something that is incredibly difficult to decide on.

I think, ITC and BCP need to integrate a “strike list” which the TOs can access. If an issue is raised at an event, it can get uploaded on BCP and registered as a “strike” against the players name and account. This can then be used to see if there is a pattern of undesirable behaviour in the players past and would help determine the “intentional or not?” question. Once a certain amount of strikes is reached, then there should be an official ITC guideline on punishments, eventually leading to a full on ban.

Unfortunately, players need to accept that they have a responsibility to play to the rules of the game, regardless of their own level of ability. With more games, ability levels will increase, but, the onus has to be on the players themselves to abide by the rules of the EVENT and the game.

I'm more concerned over the standard of painted armies in the ATC more than anything.

From the sounds of it, hordes of unpainted plastic, rattle an colour or a very shoddy job of "3 colour minimum" that just makes me sad.
I'm in no way an ace painter, just neat and tidy myself with a wash or two. But the lack of pride in one's army just sticks in my craw.

So now people are saying ATC is purposely glossing over things that other teams reported, in an attempt to bury the truth and pretend it was no major deal.

ITC seems to have no balls to act, in this regard. Every single time something like this happens it's "They are good guys and great players" and just ignoring any of the issues. FLG had a Chapter Tactics podcast this morning that says words to that effect, just acting like oh it was no big deal.

Wayniac wrote:
So now people are saying ATC is purposely glossing over things that other teams reported, in an attempt to bury the truth and pretend it was no major deal.

ITC seems to have no balls to act, in this regard. Every single time something like this happens it's "They are good guys and great players" and just ignoring any of the issues. FLG had a Chapter Tactics podcast this morning that says words to that effect, just acting like oh it was no big deal.

I expect nothing less from you know who. The "official" press release reads like a whitewash to downplay the extent of multiple issues that occurred at the event. I know the majority of NC teams have said they will not be attending again. No reason to pay that much money to attend a "premier" event, if it is going to be ran like a garage league. As a community we need to establish a council of major hobby contributors to act as a "governing body" like sports has. TO's will still be free to use or not use the recommended roster, like a fighter banned in vegas can still fight in atlantic city. BUT, at least it would be there and would be available to be announced, "for this tournament the Worst Coast Players (see what I did there?) will be in effect."

Of course alot of thought has to go into how to determine appropriate punishment, what are the burdens of proof, etc.

 Dr. Mills wrote:
I'm more concerned over the standard of painted armies in the ATC more than anything.

From the sounds of it, hordes of unpainted plastic, rattle an colour or a very shoddy job of "3 colour minimum" that just makes me sad.
I'm in no way an ace painter, just neat and tidy myself with a wash or two. But the lack of pride in one's army just sticks in my craw.

I'll be honest, that bothers me too. For the rest of us that are not the top 5% of the field, I want a competitive game against two painted armies. I don't care if it's professionally painted, I just want a little effort put into it. I guess that is a big part of my enjoyment of the game in a tournament setting. Among pick up games, I'm totally cool with proxy or unpainted plastic, but at tournaments I expect some effort.

As an infrequent tournament organizer, it's hard to catch before the games start since people are unpacking their armies sometimes as the first round is starting. I have never seen an army pulled, but maybe a solution to keep the WAAC players honest is have a score added/deducted from the total : was the army painted or not? This doesn't have to be best painted award driven, but at least deducts those offenders.

 Overread wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
Sad to hear painting standards are continuing to slide. The entire argument about meta shifts is idiotic by the way. Your basically admitting to having better quality models painted, but because you would rather score higher on battle points you chose to show up with sub standard models, this is the definition of WAAC gaming. Manage your time better and get things painted, or heaven forbid you play with a unit choice that's not currently in the top tier lol.

It's not WAAC. If you've got two armies and one is stronger you take the stronger one to the competition which is built around the idea of taking strong armies to win. At a competition you kind of expect people to play with good lists, especially those who hope to have a chance at winning the competition.

The only way you could change that is to run a secondary competition alongside with an equal half share of the prize pool and accolades which is based around the painting and modelling quality of the whole army. That would give people reason to take higher quality painted models to tournaments; although on the competitive scene it might also put more pressure on them to consider using commissioned painters, which isn't what the hobby wants to encourage.


Note I don't mean that commissioned painters are bad, but at the competitive end you don't want people winning and claiming a prize for painting that is not their own work.

You clearly missed the point in my post entirely. There are excuses that float around and are even in this thread that claim a meta shift is a valid reason to go out an buy stronger units in a rush without having time to paint them to the tournaments standard, They claim that this is somehow OK because they just want the best possible list. That is WAAC gaming. You sign onto a tournament with the agreement to follow it's rules and standards, no body but the player at fault should be penalized because they couldn't get their models painted in time. It's even more egregious when those same "pro" players have multiple collections and finished stuff but would rather play with unfinished stuff because it is better ATM. This isn't even me pushing higher paint standards, it's me pointing out that the minimum is being ignored now.

 Byte wrote:


Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.

Well, Umpires (and their role) were more acceptable because of the outgrowth from 1st-3rd was not far enough removed to forget about the fact the game used to have a GM whose role was similar (even in "non-competitive" games).

Frankly the Big TOs need to run Umpires at the tables. Ump becomes LAW, regardless of correct or not. If the number of tables is too large for that then maybe 2 tables per Ump or three. But Ump on call doesn't work the same as far as restraining cheating. Hell there are Umps all over major sports and players still try to pull fast ones.

Honestly, none of this is helped by the modern codexes or power creep and the associated and often SILLY rules fudging needed by GW to shoehorn in the next big seller.

I can't recall a version of the Game that had a core rule changed mid-version like 8th did ( like with deep strike). I could have told them day one (and DID tell GW) that their version of deepstrike would be a problem and wouldn't work. Same thing with the need to shoe-horn fixes to Smite because of Mortal Wound abuse. I could have said day one (and I had in several public places and during feedback from GW), that Mortal Wounds would be bad and would be abused to death. Oh look, they were.

The point is these gakky rules make it that much harder for TOs because the system is almost engineered to be FoTM, WAAC, because the drive is model sales and not a working game. Same reason why much of the problems with previous versions were Codex Creep and NEW RELEASE SPAM (3/3 Eldar Jet Bikes were a huge imbalance but they needed to move those models and make money... Also, knights, I am looking at you).

Frankly the Big Boys already alter rules and at this point should just throw out the baby with the bathwater and just craft a set of Tournament Rules, even so far as to make alterations to codexes to remove power-creep and the model selling changes that throw the game into a tail-spin and making tournaments very hard to be both smooth and fair. ITC has been wrenching on rules for a long time and I've told them, the issue isn't your wrenching on the rules, it is that your not doing ENOUGH. Time for a Frame Off Restore, not just bolt on power adders. Can't build a house good house on a rotten foundation.

I have watched all these problems now for years and watched it get worse and have had solutions but no one wants them. I don't peddle them anymore because people DONT WANT SOLUTIONS. They want GW to make the solutions rather than take personal responsibility and make the game work. ITC has always danced around the problem because they feel they CAN'T make the changes needed to make the Tournaments more fun, more balanced, faster, and fair. Not because some higher power says no but because of player push-back.

I still play 7th with my local folks, who, when they can play with me will play 7th over 8th.. mind you... MY VERSION of 7th. It really wasn't hard to fix, streamline, and take out all the rules abuse and ambiguous rules. The local meta opinion is my version of the game is more fast, more fun, and more fair and can really be played with a bring whatever you want and have fun. I don't share them outside the local anymore because I've found that people don't want fixes, they want new loopholes that they know about and no one else so they can abuse them for wins. I still remember the first time I said talked with the internet folks about an "Extensible Rules System that uses inheritance". It got even worse back in 7th when I told them how to fix the "abuse" that everyone was complaining about. No! Can't do that. Fix it but DON'T FIX IT! Fix it by not fixing it! Don't touch my sacred cow!

meatybtz wrote:

 Byte wrote:


Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.

Well, Umpires (and their role) were more acceptable because of the outgrowth from 1st-3rd was not far enough removed to forget about the fact the game used to have a GM whose role was similar (even in "non-competitive" games).

Maybe that. Arguably more importantly, sportsmanship and other "soft scores" and far more meaningful painting scores were the norm, even more so than they are in their current version of GW events/tournaments. It was much more accepted that "competitive" meant competitive across all aspects of 40K (e.g. painting as well as playing the game, etc..).

The 'Ard Boys format, which did away with with most of that prominently (though smaller events predating 'Ard Boyz probably did too) kinda changed the tune and has poisoned the scene to this day.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.

It is a fair point for peregrine to make.

We have had "top uber super cool kids club competitive players" cheat and have illegal lists, win tournaments with said list, and have 0 repercussions get it hand waived off as "a mistake anyone can make" and get to keep prizes ect.

Meanwhile, when some pleb "makes a mistake" they are awful cheaters who not only get dq'd/ kicked /banned, they also get lambasted by various sites (almost always without being consulted/interviewed) that trash their name/reputation.

Great post. I've received the "don't worry about it" response as well.

Rule violation reprocussions should be in place and clear for GTs. I wont pay travel money and dedicate my valuable time until the GT scene starts taking cheating more seriously. Dudes winning and in the top 5s at these events know what they are doing and not doing. Newbs don't finish tops or dominant tables in GTs.

From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.

These are facts:

Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.

Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue

What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.

The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATC TO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.

This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.

There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.

emperorprotectsall wrote:
From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.

These are facts:

Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.

Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue

What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.

The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATC TO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.

This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.

There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.

It's nice to get another perspective. As someone who wasn't there, my initial reactions to your post are 1) even if Team Happy was singled out, if they knew they were already so disliked and such a big target, they should have been extra careful to make sure their lists and game times and tournament conduct was beyond reproach so that other people wouldn't have any ammo, and 2) I'm curious why the Has Been's weren't punished or discussed in this saga since the problems you're mentioning sound pretty severe.

 Virules wrote:

emperorprotectsall wrote:
From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.

These are facts:

Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.

Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue

What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.

The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATC TO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.

This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.

There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.

It's nice to get another perspective. As someone who wasn't there, my initial reactions to your post are 1) even if Team Happy was singled out, if they knew they were already so disliked and such a big target, they should have been extra careful to make sure their lists and game times and tournament conduct was beyond reproach so that other people wouldn't have any ammo, and 2) I'm curious why the Has Been's weren't punished or discussed in this saga since the problems you're mentioning sound pretty severe.

Or you know... It could be that the whole team has history of issues and people are tired of it getting the hand wave and so the tolerance for that particular team was less than others...

It's easy to look at stuff like this and get upset about the state of things, but the truth is all of this stuff is just the growing pains associated with a maturing competitive community. Yeah, it would be great if none of it was necessary, but if the community learns and improves from it, its an overall positive sign.

Chess clocks, more involved TOs, better list building software, codified rules of conduct and penalties for players and judges are some of the many positive things that can come out of scenarios like this if the player base seizes the opportunity. Bringing these situations to light and coming up with solutions for them is the best way to make tournaments that strive to be as casual as possible. We just need the proper safeguards in place to keep things running smoothly.

 jifel wrote:

There have been a ton of rumors and misinformation surrounding what was actually done and said this past weekend in relation to the team that was removed from our 40k event. Following is our official statement regarding the issue. We hope that you will read it completely and help share the facts and not the rumors.

...

We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate. We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources...

This is ATC's official statement on the events this weekend. Take from it what you will.

The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.

Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.

ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 jifel wrote:

There have been a ton of rumors and misinformation surrounding what was actually done and said this past weekend in relation to the team that was removed from our 40k event. Following is our official statement regarding the issue. We hope that you will read it completely and help share the facts and not the rumors.

...

We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate. We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources...

This is ATC's official statement on the events this weekend. Take from it what you will.

The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.

Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.

ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.

Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.