It is with great sadness that we announce the removal of The University of Wisconsin-Madison from the CSL. While we strive to create a fun and competitive environment for all schools to participate in, it unfortunately is the reality that some will attempt to bend the rules and take unfair advantages.
The school first came onto our radar when an anonymous member of their Starcraft 2 club contacted us about a player knowingly not a current student being added to the team's roster with a valid campus email. A complaint in the second week's match vs the University of Maryland Baltmore County led to an investigation of account sharing. After reviewing the evidence and listening to the opinion of top players in the community as well as the player in question, the CSL staff as a whole has come to the conclusion that the coincidences and the actions of the people involved are grounds for removal of the team from the league.
We have decided to remove the team rather than just those involved, because in our opinion the situation reflects a concerted effort by multiple individuals to break the rules. Unfortunately, the entire team is being punished. It is our hopes that this will serve as an example to deter further cheating in the CSL. Further, Player A "Doppler" and Player W "Wyatt" will be receiving lifetime bans from the CSL, while UW's ban will only be for the duration of Season 4.
The Case:
- Wyatt was brought into the first 1v1 against UMBC as a last minute substitution.
- A player with 0 1v1 games played (Wyatt) on his account defeats a 2000 rating Terran from UMBC
- This raises the suspicions of UMBC, UMBC confronts Wyatt
- The 2v2 match is played (Doppler is in the 2v2)
- The last 1v1 match is played, with Doppler winning.
- UMBC accuses the same player of playing on Wyatt and Doppler's account.
Doppler also played a 2v2 match in Week 1. Looking at the replays of the first week's 2v2 match, Wyatt's 1v1 match, and the second Doppler 2v2 game - one sees almost identical hotkeys, mechanics, minimap usage, and apm patterns. The final 1v1 match sees Doppler using radically different hotkeys and a more erratic playstyle. I am a former competitive Brood War player and worked with WGTour.com's cheater section for several years. Further, I consulted with several high caliber players such as Gretorp and Saracen who all agreed that the consistencies in play were too similar for them to be different people.
The changed hotkeys by Doppler in the final 1v1 match reflect, in our eyes, a deliberate attempt to conceal cheating - as UMBC had made their accusation before the final 1v1 was played. Players do not radically change their hotkeys and playstyles from game to game in such a manner. The defense of UW was weakly persuasive. When asked for a pack of replays, Doppler provided only three games, two of which showed similar hotkeys to the ones used before (but not exactly the same), while another showed radically different hotkeys. The three replays sent were from a 3 month span (from August to October), in which it is entirely possible that a player would slightly adjust hotkeys. Therefore, we have agreed that there is insufficient evidence to change our minds.
This decision came as the result of deliberation with the coordinator of UW, with myself and the entire CSL staff, and through conversation and review by top players. We understand the gravity of this decision, but feel it is the right step to take to prevent such actions from happening in the future.
We hope UW will decide to participate in the CSL next season, and that its players understand our decision. We also hope that no schools will consider bending the rules in such a way. Thanks to UMBC for their persistence in trying to have fair play upheld.
Sincerely,
CSL Staff
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Comments (25)
good decision by csl staff
Good catch! People playing other accounts? I would never thought about that ><
props to Steve [Cyrain] Forstner on our team for catching this! Our team spent quite a few hours reviewing the replays last weekend due to the suspect actions. Also thanks to CSL for taking the claims seriously and reviewing it extensively to make a decision.
~ cheating = BAD! (dont do it in school either =)
great job guys.
Will the teams in the Dragon Division have byes on the week we were supposed to play UWM?
Don't count on it yet--there are a few CSL waitlist teams that would be willing to take 3 weeks of forfeits to play in the remainder of the season.
This case was handled very well by the CSL, and my hats off to UMBC for spotting something suspicious and taking this matter seriously. I hope the UWM players who did not have a part in cheating understand that these actions were necessary.
When were you planning on telling Peter and I this?!!? A shame this had to happen to the CSL, but excellent work by the other admins making this difficult decision. Sorry to all of the other UW players that this had to happen to your team, and thank to Cyrian to pointing this out to us.
We will look to replace UM, and have that team start off with the same record. Better to start 0-2 and get a chance at playing than give 10 teams a BYE!
u guys... scared me.... i thought UW as UWaterloo when i read the title...
There's lots of UWs. I bet csl did that on purpose lol...being vague on purpose
No, all the UWs were removed.
The SC and TeamLiquid community has always been the most honorable community around and its just pathetic that people on a team would knowingly let this happen and all sit there with closed mouths eyes and ears. I personally would never allow my own team to cheat, no matter what the potential gain from a win is, its absolutely pathetic that this happened.
Whoa, at first reading I thought it was University of Waterloo. I'm glad it's not and I'm glad these cheaters are getting punished.
I completely agree with Zlasher. Integrity has been such a fundamental asset among the competitive SC scene, and CSL is no exception. It is so easy to use multiple accounts to play your stronger players, and even easier to feed information by observing or watching a live stream. The CSL and every participating team have enough faith and trust that each person will be honest and fair. And the fact that these players cheated when there is no tangible prize completely undermines the spirit of the game. I hope the names of cheaters involved are made public so their reputation among the SC community will be known.
Hey, Cyrain here. I'm the guy who played Wyatt/Doppler (as noted in the above posts) I just want to give a big thanks to the CSL staff for handling this appropriately and most importantly very thoroughly. I have a lot of respect for you for hearing the cases of the UW players and consulting top players before making your decision. Thank you for putting the time in to do this.
I am curious however to see if you plan to make a change to the score of the UMBC vs UW match since it has been confirmed they were cheating. Had I not played Doppler illegally the next best player they'd have used against me would have been a 1200 diamond and the likely outcome of that match would have been much different.
I understand if you choose not to give us a set win, because although they used one played to win all 3 games I suppose we did technically lose, but could you perhaps make the set null or at the very least null the match in which I played doppler on his other account?
Thanks again for hosting such an amazing league.
Sorry, I just checked my email I see you did say the match results would be changed. And to Davasian, it is still possible to go to UW's roster and see the players names if you really wanted to. I think they've learned their lesson though, and besides the players in question have received lifetime bans.
i would allow the waitlisted teams to reschedule matches with the teams they missed out on. that makes it fair for the rest of the division as well imo
This is UNFAIR to teams who have already won round 1 and 2. This gives them a chance to lose, again.
Agreed. I think it's best to just let the teams UW cheated against have the 3-0 and have the replacement team take it from there. The league will go on unaffected and the new team will be sure to play by the rules.
lol wow. i didn't know xeris was actually useful for something :P
except for winning CSL matches, something UVic apparently can't do :D
Even if it's "unfair" against the teams UW faced, giving a free win to those teams instead of having them earn it fairly may cause problems later in the season, when teams are making a run for the playoffs. Especially if it is a 3-0 win, since the wins/losses could be the difference between a playoff spot and missing the playoffs.
There are a few weeks in the year where a match could be scheduled. The 27th of November doesn't have any matches scheduled for that weekend, for instance. One of the matches could be scheduled then, and another could be scheduled at another point during the year, so it wouldn't make it more difficult for any of the teams to actually get the matches done. I definitely think it would be better to do that than give out the 3-0 wins in this situation.
Yeah I don`t think you can give the teams the losses when they lost to ringers. Or give them 3-0s when it may be the difference between playoffs or no playoffs.
IMO get one of the waiting list teams to join in, and get those two matches played at some point. Being that CSL matches are only once every weekend there should be enough time to find a crack in and get the games played...
Thank you CSL for a very detailed information considering the case. I am very sorry for what happened and I can promise you that lesson is learned and nothing alike will ever happen in the future. Looking forward to season 5. Once again sorry CSL, our league and opponents. This will never happen again.