Fears were confirmed: Sea Wave Cup — another scam tournament
Last month we told you about the suspicions of a strange tournament called Sea Wave Cup. It is hosted by an organizer that had no such experience before, and among the sponsors is the famous brand HONOR. Spoiler, our suspicions have been confirmed.
Our suspicions
Let's refresh your memory about this tournament and why we decided to follow it closely. Sea Wave Cup was announced on social media, but there was no mention of the event on its sponsor, HONOR. Another reason was the strange rules of the prize payout. The official rules stated that the organizer has the right to change the prize fund and even cancel the payment. Read more about that — Sea Wave Cup: the prize money will be paid, but it's not sure.
What we have at the moment
This tournament has been going on for about a month. Its group stage went well: all matches had a ticket in Dota 2, which means that there is all the information and statistics about them. Coverage of the tournament in social media, on the official website, and on Twitch broadcasts was engaged by a media partner of the organizer.
The weird things started at the playoff stage. Not a single match of this stage has a Dota 2 ticket. There is silence on the media partner's website, and the last Twitch broadcast is dated September 28. At the same time, all match results, and there have supposedly been 8, appear on the sites of tournament aggregators. The organizer just puts the score manually, and the aggregators, in their turn, copy it without checking the facts.
The worst thing in this situation is that some bookmakers take bets and create lines for matches of this tournament, just trusting the data from such sites.
Tournament support
After the announcement, this tournament was actively supported by the Omega Esports coach and media partner in Discord channels. They both vouched for the honesty of the organizer. Omega Esports even helped Team Mystery to get into the tournament. But we'll talk about them later.
In the end, it was Omega Esports who got the last place with 2 technical defeats in a row without any explanation.
Interesting Facts
Another tag that stands out from the list of participants is Team Mystery. The team began its existence with DPC: SEA Lower Division S2, from which it was eliminated. After that, it was spotted in many scam tournaments that weren't completed, such as Dragon Nest Championship, Efusion Dota 2 League, and others. We've written about some of them before.
But that's not the end of the weirdness. The nickname of one of the Team Mystery members, mks-, is identical to the nickname of the player who played last year for the Chinese team Panda gaming that participated in the notorious Gold Occupation and Master Tournament series. We think this is not just a coincidence, considering the hyphen at the end of the nickname.
Links to both accounts:
The situation with scam Tier-4 tournaments in Dota 2 is not new. It would be no surprise if the organizer of the Chinese scam tournaments changed the format and now organizes similar tournaments in Southeast Asia, and Sea Wave Cup is just one of its new projects.