ESEA ADV changes playoff bracket, twice

Earlier today, a unique situation arose inside the ESEA Advanced final standings, forcing the admins' hands to make an abrupt change to one of the 16 playoff teams. After a manual alteration, ESEA admins pulled doodlebob from the playoffs, with Team DNA taking their place. The sudden change sparked a massive reaction from players and coaches, which was to be expected with the affected games set to begin just hours from now.

After investigating, the root of the abrupt decision came as a result of Unjustified being seemingly unable to field at least two members from the season before for at least three of the teams’ first four matches, which forced all of Unjustified’s matches to a forfeit loss, or FFL, decision. The alteration sparked a change of official standings, giving DNA a seat in place of doodlebob.

This, however, was incorrect. After clarification from Unjustified’s Jordan “jsfeltner” Feltner, it was revealed that he confirmed two months prior with an ESEA admin that Unjustified met the requirement through Sean “Subarashii” Turtle’s involvement in Unjustified’s relegation matches the season prior.

For clarification, the rule set by ESEA states:

For divisions above Open up to and including Advanced, for a team's spot to be maintained once the regular season begins, a team must use 2 players per match who participated during the prior season (through playing a match) in 3 out of the first 4 matches played (i.e. not including forfeits) of the season.

Failure to meet these requirements will result in each match that the team did not meet the roster requirements being forfeit. Matches will continue to be forfeit until either the team is marked as inactive (after 3 forfeit loses) or until the team has met their roster requirement.

After about an hour of public confusion, ESEA reversed their initial decision, putting the playoff bracket to its original status prior to the matter. Although no representatives of ESEA have come out to give clarity, the official Twitter did clear confusion of which team would grace the 16th seat.

Although the decision was ultimately reversed and no matchups were changed, the confusion sparked hysteria across the community as the organizer is now under fire for their current manually driven processes.

With the dust settled and the original matches intact, the bulk of first-round games are set to begin today, with three beginning at 08:00PM.