Roger and Reall Banned From Hearthstone's Grandmaster League for One Year
Blizzard Esports has issued a statement on Roger's win of the HCT Winter Championships and their future attitude towards rule violations. Here's what you need to know.
- Roger was previously caught stream-sniping and win-trading
- The stream-sniping causing his team to be disqualified from the Global Games.
- There was no action about the win-trading.
- Blizzard messed up. They acknowledge they didn't properly enforce their own rules.
- Blizzard has stated Roger still earned his championship title.
- Roger and his Taiwanese teammate, Reall, will not be allowed to participate in Grandmaster events for one year.
Quote from Sam BraithwaiteHi all – Sam Braithwaite, Senior Global Franchise Lead for Hearthstone esports here. As we prepare for the 2019 HCT World Championship, I wanted to take the opportunity to address the community’s feedback about one of our professional players, Luo "Roger" Shengyuan, who recently won the HCT Winter Championship.
In Oct. 2018, during the Hearthstone Global Games, we discovered that team Chinese Taipei, which included Roger, tom60229, Shaxy, and Reall had violated the rules to gain a competitive advantage. In response, we administered the penalty outlined in the rules at the time, and disqualified team Chinese Taipei from the competition.
But previously, in April 2018, allegations of Roger and Reall participating in win-trading had surfaced. After an investigation, we discovered their involvement in the incident but did not issue any official warning in response to their rule violation due to an internal miscommunication.
We now realize that our previous rules around these scenarios and our enforcement of them did not meet the standards of our community. We take full responsibility for this. Moving forward, we will be reevaluating our rules for the 2019 season and are committed not only to improving, but also to being more transparent about the way we administer warnings, penalties, and rulings.
Our failure should not diminish Roger’s accomplishments. He earned his championship at HCT Winter and his spot at the upcoming HCT 2019 World Championship on his own merit and in compliance with the official HCT competition ruleset.
While Roger and Reall may still compete in Hearthstone Masters Qualifiers and Masters Tour events, due to having two rule violations last year, they will not be invited to the inaugural year of Hearthstone Grandmasters. Grandmasters will be the highest level of competitive Hearthstone, and its competitors will be held to higher standards, not just in performance, but also in conduct.
Thank you for all your feedback, your support, your patience, and understanding. Hearthstone esports wouldn’t be what it is without you, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts as we prepare to embark on a new chapter of Hearthstone esports in just a few short months.
These players will forever be tainted by the mark of a cheater.
It is the life. They cheated. People have marks forever when do bad things. Life is quite simple. Don't do bad things if you don't want marks. They have committed fraud. It is not a joke. You have the jail in the real life for stuffs like that.
I think these guys are an insult to the whole HS community and in my opinion the punish is a joke. I say ban them forever. Make them suffer lol.
forsenCD MY MAN
1970 : we will have flying cars by 2020
2019: Grown man caught cheating in a card game.
"Grown men" have been cheating at card games since, like, card games were invented. Just usually it's poker.
Imagine being Naiman and reading this.... Blizzard needs to hire some paladin's and learn more about Justice!
Naiman got a whole year competitive ban in 2015, just for wintrading on ladder.
all that crap and he got banned from 1 tourny !!
And my friend's HS account got PERMANENT ban for sharing his account (playing overwatch and HS on 2 different pcs)
blizzard just fuked up again :@
Sounds like total BS made up by your "friend"(you).
my account is fine , but i asked him for his account so i can play overwatch with my brother while he play hs from his home ..
basicly im the reason he got that meaningless ban and blizzard message said he was using a bot !!
If you cheat on Warcraft using hacks you will have, fortunately, your account and IP banned from the game, probably forever. If you cheat at the Hearthstone HCT you will stay the champion and will have 1 year of exclusion from the game. Is it pretty fair right Blizz? Mmm No.
Blizzard you should hit very hard the kids in order to not incentive the fraud, because otherwise with this punishment the fraud in the game is a gain.
hell blizzard will perma ban you in games for far far less than what roger and reall did.. they got away with a slap on the wrist.
Yet wow is full of bot-trains and blizzard does nothing about it (same situation with d2 too btw.).
lol Blizzard really never gets anything right when it comes down to esports...
They should just look at Valve and they might learn a thing or 2
Why the hell the punishment is so light for that motherf.....er. Always the same bullshit and bending rules because he is famous in Taiwan and blabla, double standards confirmed.
the cheater already won and the punishment is laughable. WTF blizzard ?
You are talking out of both sides of your mouth when you say that competing for the top tier events should be based on Character as well as performance and you let this ‘Dirty Rat’, Reall, compete at World this year. Come on, really?
Finally something. It's way too late, but it is something.
Roger winning the HTC Winter was a shameful day for Blizzard and the hearthstone community, nothing less. If he will win the Worlds, no punishment he receives now or in the future will erase this for years to come. I'm only glad it seems like this was done due to community outrage, which means somebody is still listening, even if the punishment comes a full year too late and is not that great.
I'm now giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, until the next time someone is caught cheating and awarded for it.
Crime pays again. He just signed a lucrative modeling contract.
LUL REKT