On Friday at 12:54 AM, Hearthstone streamer Alex “NaviOOT” Ridley Tweeted he was disqualified from a Masters Qualifier tournament for breaking rule 7.11 (a) ii.
Allegedly, NaviOOT had a clip reported to the tournament organizers of him asking “should I clear this,” then repeatedly glancing to his right. According to a screenshot by NaviOOT, after reviewing the clip, an admin accused him of soliciting advice and actively looking at his Twitch chat “for a long period.”
The Hearthstone Tournament Player Handbook partly defines cheating as “Providing or seeking match advice from another person during a match. Team tournaments that explicitly allow team communication are an exception to this rule. Press obligations are also an exception to this rule.”
Although much of the evidence is circumstantial, I believe he was most likely looking at chat. From the brief times I’ve watched NaviOOT, he makes it a habit of asking questions then glancing to the side, presumably to look at what his viewers are saying.
I, as well as most other streamers, do this.
It’s very common for Hearthstone streamers to have multiple monitors, have the game on one monitor and Twitch chat on another.
However, I’m willing to bet a large amount of money there was no ill intent. I’m certain he just asked a harmless question out of habit and was seeing if there were any messages he wanted to react to.
Regardless, none of that matters. The rule is both unfair and unenforceable.
“Streaming is a huge disadvantage,” professional Hearthstone player Julien “Cydonia” Perrault replied in a Tweet. “Any non streamer can screenshare at any time. Why allow streaming if they are going to interpret rules like this?”
Cydonia hits both points perfectly on the head. Not only does this disproportionately hurt streamers, the rule is also impossibly difficult to enforce.
In a case as seemingly obvious as this one, do we really know beyond all doubt NaviOOT cheated? All we know is he asked a question and looked to the right. He could’ve been looking at his opponent’s decklist, or his phone, or a bug on his desk, or a million other things instead of his chat.
Now imagine there’s no video evidence. How can admins even begin to figure out who’s receiving outside help, let alone prove it?
Even if we concede they could prove someone was cheating within a third-party program, how do we stop people from using a second computer, phone, or having someone sit next to them?
I don’t think the prescription is mandatory web cameras or only punishing those who stream. The solution is very simple: remove the rule for offline tournaments.
It makes no sense to anger your most effective brand ambassadors while the spirit of the law is vulnerable to those who actually want to exploit competitions. In other words, an unenforceable and unfair rule has no place.
And to reiterate, I’m almost certain NaviOOT didn’t attempt to cheat, nor did he receive or try to receive information which could impact the match.
Depending how you frame it, it sounds more unbelievable he’d flagrantly ask his viewers for help, look at the responses, then act on that information. After all, I think a player who’s won over $10,000 in prizing doesn’t want advice from the average Twitch chatter.
