jDAwards: Best/Worst Drama story of 2014?

We come to the penultimate day of our joinDOTA Awards and it is time to talk drama. We've had some memorable stories this year; reputations were broken, money was exchanged and pitchforks were always near at hand. We countdown some of the best drama stories of 2014, and we will let you decide which one tops your list as the best.

Drama makes the world go round, especially on Reddit and our beloved forums. Although we have not had any drama as remarkable as "GIFF DIRETIDE" this year, we have had our fair share of disputes. Below are ten of the most prominent dramas of this year. Which one had you the most involved?
Era and his trip to TI4June 2014

One of the biggest drama stories of the year, and one that Valve even got involved in. At the beginning of June came the mysterious announcement that Fnatic's Adrian "Era" Kryeziu's would be withdrawing from competing in the summer. "Not allowed to play any LAN during the summer. I would've loved to, though," said Era on Twitter. Fnatic's wish to attend TI4 with their stand-in Excalibur was rejected by Valve, who even made an official post which included the correspondence between the two organisations. It was made public that Era was suffering from panic and anxiety attacks when travelling to offline events. Despite of this Valve remained firm, stating they must stick to the original lineup or lose their place. Eventually, Era DID travel to TI4. Fnatic brought Excalibur as a "coach" just in case, but he never got to play a match.Arrow Gaming match fixingOctober 2014

Alarm bells were raised when Arrow Gaming were removed from the Summit 2 due to alleged match-fixing accusations. The match in question was a Synergy League group stage match versus Australian team au Can’t Say Wips, in which Arrow allegedly placed a number of bets through proxies close to the team. Two days later a Reddit post appeared entitled "I AM DDZ, I AM NOT 322", posted by Arrow Gaming's DDZ himself, which provided evidence that was later proven to have been faked after certain factors aroused suspicion. In the end the players apologised and blamed their manager Jaren for forcing them to cover up their tracks or face getting kicked. Given how many lies were involved in this saga, in the end all parties were to blame, but it was the SEA scene's reputation that was damaged the most.The Bounty Changes in 6.82September 2014

The 6.82 patch brought a huge change to bounty rewards for killing an enemy hero, making the bounty for a kill not only based on the level of the victim but also the net worth of his entire team. The change meant that even if a team was losing heavily a quick kill could essentially reward a hero with 1-2k gold for a single kill. Statsman Alan "Nahaz" Bester's column foresaw the coming disaster, and was one of the most viewed articles on joinDOTA this year. Valve patched the bounty changes soon after, but not before the community was in uproar at a change that had huge implications on competitive play. However, the cynical and sarcastic tweets by professional players about the ridiculous nature of the change did ease the pain while players waited for it to be fixed.DreamLeague Season 2 AdminOctober 2014

DreamLeague Season2 was rescued by the GD Studio in Phase 2 and Phase3, but all was not well in the initial stage. The organisation was put under attack for poor administrative decisions regarding Team Tinker as well as an overzealous and unfeasible qualifier schedule. A DreamLeague admin had given Team Tinker a forfeit loss despite telling their manager they were okay to sleep - which was tweeted out by Bulba, and later discussed in length by manager Chappy on Reddit. Pajkatt also chipped in commenting how an admin had told him that they were required to use a stand-in if their opponent was using one. Pitchforks were at the ready and an explanation by DreamLeague did little to ease the "shitstorm". All was forgiven however, when Bruno and James stepped in, wiping the slate clean.F**K Vl1atSeptember 2014

Given how the phrase spread over the twittersphere like a virus, it is surprising it never trended. "F**K Vl1at" started from Wagamama's stream, where he decided to comment on a recent Reddit thread where StarLadder maestro Vl1at had come to defend the decisions of his admins in regards to one of their smaller competitions. Vl1at's decision to get involved rubbed Wagamama the wrong way, who decided to vocalise his disatisfaction with how StarLadder had treated his own team. According to Wagamama, StarLadder failed to reimburse his team for 50% of the travel costs to a LAN despite them jumping in to cover for a last minute withdrawal. "I normally don't hate on people but you fucking deserve it," said WagaMama as part of his 5 minute rant. Vl1at and Wagamama later kissed and made up publically over Twitter, and Waga officially apologised on Reddit, but it was certainly an adrenaline filled 24 hours.FLUFF n BLOG March 2014

In hindsight it might not seem a very good idea to blog about how your team does not appreciate you while you are still in the team, but Brian "FLUFFNSTUFF" Lee had to learn the hard way. Fluff posted a blog entitled "Crash and Burn I'm done waiting" while in Team Liquid back in March 2014, which criticized his team mates for damaging his ego and put forward an ultimatum that the team make him the leader or he would walk. "If that means leaving everything I have behind me and building from the ground up, I'll do it (...) You follow me or you get out of my way" said Fluff in the infamous blog. An official apology was issued a week later by Fluff where he said "It was a selfish post that insulted the integrity of everything Team Liquid stands for." He was made the leader but then was removed from the team 9 days after apologising. FLUFFNBLOG was definitely a drama highlight of 2014 for the American scene.DK TI4 eavesdropping by GameFYJuly 2014

GameFY are a huge TV company in China, and are responsible for hosting huge-scale events such as the G-League at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, but they were on the receiving end of a lot of hate in July 2014. The Chinese organisation was deemed guilty of recording Team DK and Invictus Gaming strategizing ahead of their matches in TI4 while the teams were in their designated game rooms, without the permission of Valve or the teams involved. GameFY uploaded the video on Youku.com, the Chinese equivalent of YouTuBe, and exposed “DK’s core strategy and their drafting ideas”. Luckily for iG, Ferrari_430 had noticed the camera, and him and team-mates left immediately after, but Team DK were not so lucky and the leak as well as the ENglish translation on GosuGamers had a huge impact on their tournament. GameFY released a statement, it read "We sincerely apologize for our actions", but it was too little too late.D2CL: 20 min remake "same picks" March 2014

Probably the most comical of the nominees, the match between Alliance and Fnatic back in March 2014 had an interesting twist. After the DOTA2 network went down the match did not appear on the ticket. The D2CL admin of the match noticed and tried to inform the teams but did so in spectator chat, so the players were oblivious. Later on the admin decided to pause the game and tell the players to remake and leaves the game. By this point the lanes were revealed and kills had already been exchanged, so the two teams kept on playing. The games went on for almost 20 minutes, before an observer relayed to the players that the admin was threatening to cancel the result of the match. "+5 great admining" said n0tail in all chat, followed by team-mate Trixi writing "5/5 would bang again". Moments later the observer also says the admin wants them to remake with the same picks, despite the game having already gone on for 20 minutes, as you can expect it did not go down too well with the players...FATA's "miss-skill" in DreamLeague March 2014

Even the professionals make mistakes, and one mistake by FATA got his team Sigma a lot of bad press in March 2014. In their DreamLeague match versus Rox.Kis, FATA accidentally skilled Shadow Fiend's Presence of the Dark Lord aura at level 1. Instead of carrying on and accepting his mistake, FATA disconnected without asking the permission of the admins for a remake, along with his Sigma team-mates. The decision was worsened by the fact that ROX.KIS were already 5-manning Roshan at level one when he disconnected, which affected their chances in the remake. FATA later apologised after his actions caused a stir: "This was a huge mistake on my side and I apologize for this. We didn't think it through properly, as a miss-skill can crucially change a whole game around from the get go." However it gave fuel to the fire of Sigma's arrogance, with 65% of joinDOTA users voting that the team should be punished for FATA's actions.Alliance double forfeit in D2CLOctober 2014

Following their trip to WCA in China, Alliance were a man down due to Chessie being plagued by a back injury. Despite being aware that they could not use their stand-in H4nn1 they were going to use for the upcoming ESL One New York, Alliance decided to forfeit their two remaining D2CL matches on the eve of the games. The double forfeit meant Alliance were disqualified and it had an impact on the standings. After careful deliberation the D2CL decided to nullify all of Alliance's matches, much to the displeasure of Team Tinker would lose their auto-qualification for the LAN finals, and went from 8-6 to be 6-6 and tied with Cloud9. The only team to really benefit from the removal of Alliance's results was Na'Vi, and they went on to not only qualify for the event, but also take 1st place. The drama did pose an interesting question as to how much blame should be placed on the team quitting, and how much on the organisers for not planning for any eventuality.


What was your favourite Drama of 2014?

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