While we are continuing to discuss the issue of expectations in team tournaments, as well as the question of sellbacks in SPL, the TD team has reviewed its current rules and decided to separate out activity and participation issues from actual team sabotage and malicious behavior.
We do believe that there should be consequences for completely failing to engage with or otherwise participate in a team tournament, and that doing so constitutes unsportsmanlike behavior. However, we agree that the current rules, which paint all poor team behavior with the same brush, are draconian and overly restrictive.
Therefore, we are making the following changes to our team rules:
1. Failure to cooperate with your team and meet the minimum standards for team behavior is considered
unsportsmanlike conduct. You are expected to participate in a team tournament in a meaningful way even if you are not actively playing. You must show some good faith participation in the team environment, whether that involves playing test games, providing feedback on team choices, or otherwise assisting teammates. There is no specific threshold for activity, but if you are drafted onto a team, you must make at least
some good faith efforts to assist that team. Failure to do so will result in an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction, and a ban from the next iteration of that team tournament.
2. Before a manager can claim that one of their players has met the definition of unsportsmanlike behavior in point 1, they must first speak to their player and attempt to work with them to find a way that they can contribute. Again, this needs to be a good faith relationship between player and manager, so we need to see that the manager provided opportunities for the player to participate. Unwillingness to perform unreasonable tasks, meet unrealistic expectations of activity or learn in formats other than those that the player has signed up for will not be considered proof of unsportsmanlike behavior.
3. Actively sabotaging your team or otherwise showing malicious behavior (including but not limited to refusal to play any tournament games, sandbagging/intentionally underperforming, consistently attacking and undermining other team members, and repeated unsporstmanlike behavior in team tournaments) will result in a three-month tournament ban and a one-year ban from all team tournaments.
After discussing this with the hosts, it has been decided that these changes will apply to the individuals who were tournament banned for the outdated team sabotage rules this SPL. Therefore,
Get this Money and
menci will have their tournament bans removed and replaced with an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction. They will be barred from participating in the next iteration of SPL.