Noncompliant Teams

Kayle is not mad. Kayle is disappointed.

It was recently brought to my attention that someone had discovered a Featured Match was played with an unauthorized overfill, with a faction fielding a Silver Summoner in place of a Bronze Summoner. This was probably just a simple mistake. It was also two weeks ago, putting it outside of the one-week correction period specified in the rules. However, I wanted to use this opportunity to remind people to make sure their teams are compliant. Staff do their best to ask people to verify their ranks and otherwise to check everything over, but especially when last-minute audience fill-ins are involved oversights can happen. Take my word on this: organizing Featured Matches is surprisingly hectic, probably more so than you might guess. Mike and Porkchop are doing their best, but they’re often jumping between several different windows making sure the caster setup is working, and answering questions, and making sure notes are being kept on match outcomes, and dozens of other tasks. We count on each team to check itself, and that’s where the responsibility ultimately lies.

As a reminder, here is the relevant rule, from the Tournament Rules page. The key point is that each Summoner should make sure they know what tier slot they’re filling, and make sure they’ve reported their rank accurately. At the end of the day, it’s the team’s responsibility to make sure it’s following the rules.

Non-Compliant Teams

If a team is discovered to be non-compliant before the 5-minute mark, the organizer may halt the match and force a restart. The non-compliant team will have 5 minutes to fix the problem; if they cannot fill the spot legally, standard forfeit rules apply. (See next section.)

If a team is discovered to be non-compliant during or after the match, the match result will be retroactively changed to a loss, and the non-compliant team will forfeit 10 points to its opponent. (This is unfairly harsh. The goal is to apply strong pressure to teams to check their own teammates to make sure no mistakes are made.)

However, the match outcome cannot be retroactively changed:

• once a subsequent match has begun, based upon the prior result (e.g. a faction is already in the finals), or
• after the end of the day on which the non-compliant match occurred (day ends at midnight U.S. Pacific time).

If a non-compliant match is “locked in” in this way, and later discovered to be non-compliant, the non-compliant faction forfeits 20 points to their opponent. (This remedy is only available for one week. It ceases to be available once the same day begins in the following week. e.g., if it was a Saturday match, it ceases to be available when the next Saturday begins.)

These non-compliant rules will also apply where, e.g., a team plays with a non-faction Champion.

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