The semi-finals between Frag eXecutors and mTw , arguably the match everyone was anticipating at some point during this tournament, proved once more to be a nail-biter to the very end. However, the series almost found itself derailed by accusations of ghosting/screenwatching, the situation arising when it was discovered a computer directly next to the line of mTw players was showing a live stream of the game.

The situation arose, according to FX, during the third map of the series, nuke, on a round where neo was in the metal area above the vents at the upper site. He had walked to that position, and thus wasn't unable to be detected via sound, and when his opponent, minet, came in through the front entrance to upper he apparently shot upwards immediately and killed neo. This caused some of the FX players to ask the man sitting behind them, a former manager from their time in MYM apparently, to check if somehow mTw was ghosting.

Their former manager stood up and looked over to the mTw line of players, who were sat on the same line of PCs in the BYOC area to the right, albeit with around five PCs separating them, and saw an individual sat directly to the left of trace, the leftmost mTw player, watching the game on a live stream without any delay, or so it is claimed.

When the game reached the end of the first overtime on nuke the former manager informed FX of the situation he had uncovered and they went over to the individual in question and told him to turn the live stream off, though not in those exact words. FX were visibly upset and seemed frustrated by the incident for much of the downtime waiting for the next overtime period to begin. kuben even made mention of the incident in-game, as can be seen via the screenshot below.

For the sake of context it is worth filling in additional details that minet was sat to the very right of trace, making him the second leftmost mTw player, and thus was only two PCs down from this individual. The stream was also on-site and at a venue with a very good internet connection.

Also on the FX side of the line there was a barrier up the entire series and so one was put up on mTw's side also after the complaint was made about the live stream incident. The problem being that while it did likely prevent most of the mTw line from being capable of seeing the individual's screen from their normal seating positions the leftmost player, trace, was still in a position to see some of it.

It is claimed by some in this HLTV.org thread that the individual was in fact watching HLTV, with a delay, not a live stream.



Conclusions

Firstly it should be stated that there is no direct evidence of mTw having looked at this individual's screen, which was supposedly displaying the live stream, at any point in time. There is only the anecdotal evidence of FX based on a few in-game situations, though it will be interesting to view that specific situation again via HLTV demo after the event.

Secondly the blame here should not lie with mTw or the individual watching the livestream. It is not their job to ensure the integrity of the playing environment for both teams. That is the job of the organisers and administrators of the tournament. There should be no possibility at any point during a competitive match, no less a semi-final between two of the world's best teams, where one team can see even a moment of the game from anything other than their own screens.

There's no good reason for this situation to have arisen. The teams should probably not even have been seated in those positions, being as the tournament was down to four teams it would have been a wise move to reposition one of them facing the opposite direction and on the other side of the venue. The fact the match did not begin until night time also means this solution would have been viable, with some people having vacated their spots for the night.

For FX the matter ends up becoming a minor annoyance since they were able to triumph in the second overtime of that third map and progress to the final. Though they may feel differently about the impact of that situation if they should lose in the final after being kept up for hours playing rounds which might have been unnecessary.

For mTw their elimination from the tournament means they ultimately have gained nothing from the situation, regardless of whether or not any of them for a moment saw a screen showing a livestream.

For Copenhagen Games, and the admins of the Xperia PLAY tournament, this is a damning moment in an already very flawed tournament. Expect a more in-depth writeup of the context prompting that statement next week at SK Gaming.