- Main talking points- Spanish based DOTa2pot host 1000$ competition
- Offers 100% of ticket profits to first place
- Organiser Andrei provides the 1000$ from his own pocket
-
Denial eSports, 
mYinsanity and 
XPC and others join. -
eStar forfeits all matches- Organiser Andrei struggles with time management and scheduling
- Participating teams lose interest, results in forfeit wins and delays
- Organiser pulls plug on competition, withdraws his 1000$, but splits ticket sales with 3 teams
- Organiser keeps prize money because "60% of the teams can not play the hours I have set"
-
MYi enraged, claim entire prize money belongs to them- Organiser disappears, fate of TEC uncertain
Pitchforks were at the ready last night when an mYi player posted that the organisers behind TEC had cheated his team out of their prize money. However, the events surrounding the competition were not so clear-cut.
Organiser invests all into competition
The Top Europe Challenge (TEC) was funded by a man called Andrei Pot, who had previously run an all-Spanish tournament called Spain Dota 2 Pot League, named after his one-man company. The prize money for its second installment was 100 euros for first place, coming out of Andrei's pocket. Although the competition struggled with postponements and forfeits, it eventually completed its course without major incident.
However, instead of treating DOTA2pot's scheduling issues as a bad omen of things to come, Andrei chose to widen his gaze and set his sights on creating a European tournament. He once again got a ticket through Valve's system and increased his own contribution to 1000$. The tournament was christened the Top Europe Challenge and 100% of the profits ticket sales was also set to go to whichever team finished with the most wins. 7ckngmad's
Denial eSports, mYisanity and XPC were some of the teams to sign up to compete. Hoping that his investment would pay off in the long-term, the business model was far from lucrative. In fact, Andrei was set to make absolutely no money from the first installment of what he hoped would be a prosperous new brand. The tournament was to be a round robin, with a best of 3 to be played almost daily unless postponed. Initially penciled in for the second quarter of the year, the tournament got pushed back several times due to the item designer taking time off, the ticket not reaching the DOTA 2 store, as well as TEC being too close to TI4. By mid-August the competition finally kicked off, more than three months later than anticipated, with Andrei recently posting on Reddit that 810 tickets were sold at 3.59euros a piece, amassing over 2700 euros.
The first signs of struggle - Civil War and holidays
The Top Europe Challenge started well enough but was soon rattled by
eStar announcing they had "internal roster trouble" and forfeited all their games. With Andrei stretched having to admin his own tournament almost single-handedly save for the efforts of commentator DSwordfish, he was unable to keep up with the pace and a delayed arrival to admin Denial vs MYi, apparently did little to impress the competing teams. This was to be the beginning of a hard grind for Andrei, the hopeful entrepreneur quickly realised he had bitten off more than he could chew according to commentator DSwordFish, and with teams steadily taking his match scheduling less seriously he became despondent.“The fact DOTA2pot wasn't well-known meant the tournament was more relaxed than big tournaments (like MSI or Starladder) so as the tournament progressed and a clear winner was in sight, many teams decided to forfeit matches," Said Alvaro "@DSwordfish" Sanchez, the Spanish-English commentator, as well as the only other admin. "At first they'd ask to postpone but if they had to forfeit they never seemed to mind. Sometimes for rather sketchy reasons which included a “civil war” and “vacation time”."
Organiser pulls the plug mid-tournament
By the end of August half the matches were played, but this was far from the tournament Andrei had envisioned. More than six matches had resulted in forfeit wins and a handful of postponements had taken place, the man behind TEC felt enough was enough and decided to shut down the competition.
"I have decided to stop the event. The prize will be split between the three top teams. Thank you everyone and it's a pity that we have to close the tournament but teams left me no option," said Andrei on his official post.
Reddit responds, pitchforks ready
His post was his only communication to the participating teams that we know of, and since his post he has disappeared, not responding to messages from the teams involved or his former colleagues, aside from replying to the initial reddit thread which claimed he had "run away" from delivering the prize money he had promised.
"I'm still here , I do not run away , the prize pool is from my own pocket so I have not taken anybody's money. The profits from the tickets that Valve gives me I will give 100% to the team. The 1000$ are from my pocket, and I close the event because 60% of the teams can not play the hours I have set. Every day players arrive late and are asking me to reschedule. I've dedicated a lot of time to this event and it seems some teams, not all, are very very unprofessional."
Andrei's reply on Reddit
Going back on his decision to give the 1000$ prize money and ticket sales to first place as promised, Andrei instead seems set to keep the prize money and instead split the profit from the "2907 euros" in ticket sales between the top three teams at the time of the tournament being closed;
mYinsanity, XPC, and 
Kompas Gaming. Given the fact Valve takes a 75% cut in ticket sales, it leaves just over 700 euros to split between the three teams. That means that if mYi did in fact take 1st place, they will be receiving 250 euros instead of over 1700 euros if Andrei follows through with his change of plans. However, given the tournament's poor coverage and lack of updated results, the exact final standings are open to debate. Andrei was unable to avoid the spotlight of Reddit, with a second thread written by an MYi player who "wanted to reveal the injustice that have been done to my team" gathering steam. He was adamant that due to his team beating both the second and third place XPC and KPG 2-0, his team should be entitled to 100% of the prize money. “My team mYinsanity played all matches we were supposed to, and we won all matches. So we are on the top of table, near ending, and there was no chance that anyone could reach us."
mYi's Reddit postTournament fails to live up to organiser's expectations
"Andrei decided to split it because with all the def-wins he found it a little unfair that myinsanity just took the tournament," said DSwordFish. "He also did not want to put in his own prize money, because it is his money after all, and he thought that a tournament like this needs to be played out until the end, not give out money willie-nillie to the team with the most def-wins." MYi had been on the receiving end of two forfeit wins, one from eStar and one from Team Once. With no admins present for their other matches, the validity of the results came into question. MYi posted they can provide proof of their victories but it seems it might not be enough for them to receive what they believe they deserve.
For some of the participating teams the drama has passed by unnoticed, while others such as the manager of Kompas Gaming believe that the man behind TEC is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the community to cash in on the ticket sales. As of yet none of the three teams he promised would receive ticket sales seem to have been contacted but DswordFish has high hopes that there is still a light at the end of the tunnel.
" I have begged him to resume the tournament and he is considering it," said DSwordFish "resizing to the teams that actually can play they would play out the matches that were left but if that doesn't happen he will simply split the ticket-sales three ways among the top teams."
" I was also the caster at this tournament, and I really apologize for the outcome and really wish I could do something about it. I will try my best to try to resolve the situation with the smallest amount of drama possible and I wish it was within my power to simply resolve everything that happened. I apologise to the community."
What next for Andrei and the TEC prize money?
From what we understand Andrei is done with DOTA2 but what is to become of TEC? What is the right decision given the circumstances? Is he within his rights to simply withdraw prize money of his own free will? Should MYi be given their 1000$ prize money? Whether or not the ticket money is given back to the teams is one thing, but what about the viewers who paid for the ticket to watch those matches? The events of TEC although perhaps small in scale do highlight possible dangers in the ticket system, as this competition is not the first to enter rocky waters when it comes time to pay out what was promised.
What do you think? Where do you think the ticket sales profit should go?
This article was written by
Lawrence Phillips, joinDOTA's Editor-in-Chief.Malystryx has been in eSports since 2004 working as eSports Editor for Razer and Editor-in-Chief of SK Gaming in the past He misses the days of Warcraft3 but makes do with the world of DOTA 2. After taking a 3-month hiatus as Editor-in-Chief he is now back.Location: Bristol, UKFollow him on @MalystryxGDS.
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