"Tournaments, Cheaters, and Chumps"

by Matthew C.
2009.05.01

Online tournaments should burn in hell. Now that I have your attention...online tournaments (as they are currently handled) are HORRIBLY FLAWED. Online tournaments are for cheaters and chumps. It's entirely on the honor system and since some players even have a hard time spelling that, I have no hope.

I've been moderating non-Brawl tournaments for about ten years and I must say that the "tournament hosts" at All Is Brawl (AiB) are so obsessed with trivial things like restricting characters and banning stages, they forget about running a decent tournament. In the many years that I've been monitoring tournaments, only once have I seen any player or team of players advance due to a non-playing reason. On AiB, that happens with disturbing regularity. So many players get "free rides" due to stupid reasons. Sometimes participants are disqualified in the first 60 seconds of the tournament; sometimes players won't participate because there isn't a certain AiB medal involved; sometimes the host won't use "tio" because they want to manually match up who plays who in each round; sometimes the participants don't even have a Wii console! (Why are they even entering?) Anyway, half of the players advance through sheer "dumb luck" while others are eliminated through honest game play. Heck, I’ve seen a player make it to the final match by winning ZERO matches! (Way to go! You're a real champ!)

I don't want this to sound like "sour grapes" or anything like that. When I'm honestly defeated, I'm the first to admit it. I just had my butt handed to me yesterday. I don't mind. After all, THIS IS A GAME. (People seem to forget that.)

Personally I've sworn off ONLINE tournaments. I no longer wish to be involved with any ONLINE tournaments here or elsewhere. (The only problem with that is the in-person tournament scene in western Pennsylvania is severely lacking.)

I'm sure you all have your own stories of ridiculous excuses and botched online matches. I'd like to hear them.