After investigating reports about suspicious behavior on the ranked ladder during the "Season of the Dryad", we have found that player Li “wangid2021” Nipao received unwarranted victories from the players forfeiting to him with a purpose to improve his position on the ladder. Such activity violates paragraph 12.3(a) of GWENT Masters ruleset:
12.3. Cheating. Cheating of any kind will not be tolerated and includes (but is not limited to) any of the following, whether actual, attempted, direct, indirect, intentional or otherwise:
a) match-fixing, colluding with others (which includes without limitation sharing prize money with other Participants) or taking any action intended to alter or interfere with the results of any part of the GWENT Masters
While we don’t have on-record evidence suggesting that wangid2021 was requesting other players to forfeit, our analysis of match history and replays showed the abnormally high rate of unwarranted victories received from such players (including multiple victories against player 五花瞟 banned earlier for the manipulation with the pro-ladder results in the same season). Other top pro players’ match history was also checked during this investigation, but no violations were confirmed.
Given the information above and the fact that wangid2021 didn’t reveal this situation to GWENT Masters authorities, we’ve concluded that his behavior was, in fact, collusion with other players and, thus, in violation of paragraph 12.3 of the Rules.
To protect the integrity of “Season of the Dryad” results we’ve made a decision to issue sanctions against this player according to paragraph 14.3 of GWENT Masters ruleset:
14.3. Sanctions. CD PROJEKT RED and its Affiliates may at its discretion impose sanctions for any breaches (whether actual, attempted, directly, indirectly, intentionally or otherwise) of these Rules and the GWENT User Agreement. Sanctions available include (but are not limited to):
c) deducting Crown Points (in whole or in part);
Since 3.7% of matches played by Wangid2021 were found in violation of rule 12.3, 400 (3.7% of the total) MMR will be deducted from his “Season of the Dryad” score. This change will also result in -15 Crown Points granted for top-200 placement, leaving wangid2021 with the final number of 240 Crown points scored in Season 3.
With this change, wangid2021 won’t receive the invitation to participate in World Masters S3 as he will not have enough Crown Points to make it to top-4.
We’d like to use this opportunity to remind every player that attempts to manipulate ranked ladder results will not be tolerated. Both sides, players intentionally forfeiting as well as players getting free wins from these actions, are bound only to lose from engaging in this activity.
