Team Liquid captain and AWPer Eric “adreN” Hoag has received a two-day ban from the ESEA service. During Team Liquid’s clash with Team Elevate on June 9, Hoag violated the ESL and ESEA Pro League’s rules as he repeatedly paused the match after teammate Kyle “Flowsick” Mendez suffered connection issues.
The Pro League, whose debut season began May 4, schedules up to 40 best-of-one matches per week and relies on matches starting and finishing in a reasonable time to make sure there are as few delays as possible. That ensures teams won’t have to wait too long to get games started and viewers can expect games to correlate to the schedule.
Unfortunately there is one thing that rarely fails to disrupt online esports events: a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which targets a player’s internet connection and aims to knock them offline, hoping to force either a forfeit or at best a last minute stand-in. People who bet large amounts of money on matches often carry out the DDoS attacks if the team they bet on looks likely to lose.
The target in this game was Team Liquid’s Mendez. ESEA league rules state that each team is given one pause in regulation time and another if the match goes into overtime. Hoag, captain for Team Liquid, paused more than once in regulation. Elevate agreed to the pause to allow for Mendez to try and get back into the game, though even after rejoining, the player disconnected at the start of the 30th round allowing for a 16-14 victory for Elevate.
Team Liquid do not play any Pro League matches while the ban is in effect, meaning their standing in the league won’t be affected. ESEA has now set a precedent, however, meaning that the effects of DDoS attacks could be more serious in the future as teams may be forced to play at a man disadvantage or risk player bans.
Photo via Team Liquid
