Warden apologizes for ECS Season 7 Finals pointing incident
Yesterday after Complexity's upset victory over MIBR at ECS Season 7 Finals, community luminary Haci took to Twitter to share clip from the match.
In the clip, Complexity player Ricardo "Rickeh" Mulholland does not notice MIBR's João "felps" Vasconcellos perched in mid. Due to the inset player camera, Complexity coach Matt "Warden" Dickens can be seen physically pointing to Rickeh's screen.
Reactions to the clip varied, with MIBR coach Wilton "zews" Prado understandably upset:
OpTic coach Casper "ruggah" Due saying that it is not uncommon for coaches to be more involved in matches than the rules strictly allow:
ECS observer Connor "Sliggy" Blomfield saying the following:
Go easy on
@coLWarden.I agree most people would of done the same. I’ve seen coaches help with smoke lineups before this is no different.
Only reason you see this is because
@ecs use down the line shots over the first person forehead cams we normally get.
While NRG coach Chet "ImAPet" Singh and North captain Valdemar "valde" Bjørn Vangså lamented lax officiating in general:
Later in the day, after Complexity were ousted from the tournament by Vitality, Warden took to Twitter to apologize and explain what happened in a series of tweets.
Warden also noted that he was "warned by the head of ECS" of the violation after the first map of the Vitality series. The ECS Season 7 Finals Rulebook lists the ranking tournament official as FACEIT Director of Esports Roald Van Buuren.
According to section 4.1.1 of the ECS Season 7 Finals Rulebook, this violation would have incurred a "Round Loss Sanction" and an "In-Match Misconduct Warning" if tournament officials saw the coaches action live. However, since the violation was assessed after the fact, it is unclear what it means in practice.
When contacted by Dust2.us, a FACEIT representative declined to comment on the situation.
As previously mentioned, Complexity exited the tournament in 5-6th place with their loss to Vitality. Despite this, the North American team impressed in London, particularly new signing Owen "oBo" Schlatter, who was making both his professional and LAN debut.
