IEM Cologne Quarterfinals impacted by "human error" for bomb plant bonus

It went unnoticed by the players, fans, and everyone else yesterday during the opening-stage matches for IEM Cologne 2024. The Ts were awarded $800 for a bomb plant, even when it was defused by the CT side during both the SAW v. FaZe and G2 v. MOUZ matches.

ESL commented on the matter in a Reddit post earlier this morning with ESL Product Manager Michael "Cynil" Parsons describing the issue as "human error" and clarifying that it was not a bug. Cynil also noted that the issue occurred only for these two stage matches and did not affect any other contests during IEM Cologne 2024.

"We've looked into the situation with our Tournament Management team and can confirm that this specific settings in the config was incorrect after switching from the Group stages of the tournament to the Playoff Stage," Cynil commented on Reddit. "The fault is due to human error and not a bug. We have reached out to the teams and will address the issue internally. We can confirm that this has now been fixed for the remainder of the games in the Playoff Stage."

This is not the first time that a situation like this has occurred. During IEM Dallas 2024, the first day of matches did not have the correct config loaded which was pointed out by Falcons IGL Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer. The situation was quickly rectified and the tournament continued without incident.

The bomb plant bonus was initially changed in May 2024 and has taken some getting used to. While some fans have been able to notice the change in some professional matches, it looks like literally everyone missed it yesterday during IEM Cologne.

Dust2.us has reached out to a representative from ESL for further comment on the matter, but we have not heard back by time of publication.