Test 123 Disqualified From Chongqing Major Qualifiers After Twitter Outcry
By Zac Cameron ·
The former Pain X team from North America have had their Major spot taken away, after Valve's hard stance on region-hopping.
The winners of the Chongqing Major South America qualifiers, Test 123 (formerly Pain X), will not be advancing to the tournament as expected after Valve released a statement on “region-hopping”. This statement comes after complaints were raised on Twitter by Peter "ppd" Dager about teams travelling to different regions to compete in qualifiers without remaining in the region to boost the local scene.
Major slots for SA
— Peter Dager (@Peterpandam) November 28, 2018
Read: https://t.co/1Gputp2kUy
Test 123, which is a team comprised of four North American’s and one Brazilian player, travelled to the event which they ultimately won, before Valve finally weighed in on the controversy with a statement yesterday.
“We are disqualifying Pain X from the South American regional qualifiers, and giving their spot to the runner-up, Thunder Predator,” wrote Valve in their official reply to the situation. “Three months ago, we were contacted by Pain X inquiring about playing in the South American qualifiers. They asked if they could participate in them by traveling back and forth to the region to play in the qualifiers, rather than staying in the region. We explained to them that they couldn’t do that. We walked them through our reasoning, and what the purpose of regional qualifiers are, and why we thought that neither we nor fans would consider them an actual South American team.”
Valve would go on to explain the reasoning behind their decision in more detail, however the players themselves also made statements about the situation, with Rodrigo Lelis "Liposa" Santos reaching out to fans on Twitter to both apologize to fans who felt they were gaming the system, as well as explain why they initially felt they were doing nothing wrong. His comments were echoed by fellow player Quinn "CC&C" Callahan.
Whether or not fans agree with the decision, it seems that the precedent has now been set by Valve on the matter. However, what is perhaps more troubling is the fact that it took a fairly well liked and famous player like ppd to draw attention to the matter in the first place.