he beautiful chaos of the Midseason Madness tournament<\/a> last week, Blizzard ran an Overwatch Contenders tournament to fill the time. Just like Midseason Madness, the Overwatch Contenders Summer Series is a double-elimination tournament with a winner\u2019s bracket and a loser\u2019s bracket. Today\u2019s European winner\u2019s bracket final \u2014 the game that would determine which team would go on to the grand final and which team would fall to the loser\u2019s bracket final \u2014 was between 01 Esports and Munich Esports and was, according to several players involved and the tournament\u2019s rules website, listed as a best of seven.<\/p>\nIn Overwatch League proper, it\u2019s not typical for matches other than the grand finals to be a best of seven. Knowing that, a player from Munich Esports reached out to a Blizzard tournament administrator to confirm if the match was indeed best of seven and received confirmation and reassurance that the winner\u2019s finals match was best of seven.<\/p>\n
And with that, the two teams played.<\/p>\n
Munich Esports went up 3-0, however 01 Esports hit the gas and started to turn it around winning the next two maps bringing the score 3-2. It\u2019s here when all hell breaks loose. <\/p>\n
Blizzard tournament admins abruptly called the match, citing that the game was intended to be a best of five, not a best of seven. Since Munich Esports was the first team to three maps, they were awarded the win. This caused a major and furious backlash against Blizzard on social media as players from Munich Esports and 01 Esports started sharing screenshots of conversations with tournament admins confirming that they had been told the match would be best of seven. <\/p>\n
Since 01 Esports was immediately scheduled to play in the loser\u2019s bracket against another team, they coordinated with their new opponents, Ex Oblivione, to essentially strike.<\/p>\n
Aron \u201cANJ\u201d de Jong, a main support player on 01 Esports, spoke to The Verge<\/em> about what happened.<\/p>\n\u201cBecause of our loss, we had to play against Ex Oblivione in the losers bracket,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made an agreement with them that this was unacceptable, and that Blizzard can\u2019t treat the players like this. We agreed with Ex Oblivione to not play the game, but we wanted to make a statement so we decided to play the game but not actually compete.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the broadcast below, you can see that neither team is playing earnestly; players stand around and refuse to play the objective. It\u2019s a fantastic bit of collective action that\u2019s also pretty funny, especially as the casters start to realize that nobody\u2019s taking this seriously.<\/p>\n