HLTV.org reviews WMF defuse

HLTV.org's Editor in Chief Luís "MIRAA" Mira casts his eye on the illegal defuse during the match between WeMade FOX and UNiTED.

Group C is currently on hold at Inferno Online after Evil Geniuses complained of WeMade FOX using a map bug to their advantage during the fifth round of the first half.

Sun Ho "termi" Pyun found himself in a one-on-two situation on Bombsite A and decided to go for the bomb, which he defused through the box, thus making an illegal action as you can see below.

However, the fact that Pyun did not defuse from a legal position did not affect the outcome of the round, as Roman "ROMJkE" Makarov did not peek and thus he would not have seen the Korean player even if he was positioned correctly.

Looking at the tournament rulebook, which is not available online, but I, just like all the teams that are here, had access to, in case of an illegal defuse, the team in question "will be subject to either a warning, at the minimum, or a forfeit loss, at the discretion of the referee."

I also had the chance to look at other tournaments' rulebooks, and I realized that Arbalet's rulebook is based on the WCG's. If you take a look at the rulebooks from CEVO and the ESWC, they say different.

ESWC: "The following actions are strictly prohibited during a game and will result in a 3 rounds loss which will be deducted at the end of the match, and a warning:

- Defuse a bomb through a wall, a roof, or any other element of the map is forbidden."

CEVO: "It is illegal to fully defuse a bomb through any solid object. CEVO officials retain full discretion in determining if an illegal defuse occurred and how many rounds may be reversed (no more than three (3) rounds will be reversed for each illegal defuse) if needed. Multiple violations by a player and/or team may also result in a suspension and/or team termination (suspension lengths and team termination are up to the judgment of the officials)."

Had Arbalet Cup used a rulebook like these two, and it would be clear what to do. In this case, we're talking about very shaky grounds, and this is a very hard call to make.

In a conversation with the Arbalet Cup admins, I was told that two facts will be considered:

1 - termi performed an illegal defuse;
2 - if termi had defused from a legal position, it would not have affected the outcome of the round, as ROMjKE did not peek.

Should the second fact be taken into consideration, it may well lessen the severity of the punishment here.

The ruling on this case will basically depend on the admins' assessment of the case. However, a tournament rulebook must be clear at all times, which is why, in my opinion, it should suffer some changes after this tournament to make punishments in cases like this crystal clear.