Mentioned in this article
League/Tournament Brands:
- Intel Extreme Masters updates its season 14 rulebook ahead of IEM Katowice 2020.
- Introduces “Suicide During Matches” rule which undergoes heavy criticism.
- IEM suspends the rule to review the situation along with the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association.
During the 14th season of Intel Extreme Masters (IEM), which started out with IEM Beijing-Haidian 2019, the tournament rulebook underwent a few changes with the objective of ensuring a fair competition ahead of IEM Katowice 2020.
These changes were implemented for the overall IEM Season 14 Rulebook which governs all competitions and games at the event.
One of the new rules added this season which garnered significant attention was “7.10.7 – Suicide during matches” which stated that,
“A player is not allowed to intentionally cause suicides of their player character. This includes using the /kill command or using map features to deny kills to the opposing team (such as jumping off on Vertigo).”
This rule attracted negative feedback from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) community, with people claiming that teams’ strategies and tactics would be affected as a result. Basically, the strategy involves teams or players committing in-game suicide, in order to deny opponents bonus rewards for scoring a kill.
Though not exactly suicide, a popular clip of Natus Vincere rushing in with pistols and purposefully dying to a Molotov thrown by Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz on Inferno, is a classic example of how teams strategize to deny the opposition bonus money that would have allowed them to purchase better weapons in the next round of a match.
After facing some backlash from the community, along with the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (CSPPA) stepping-in to review the situation, IEM suspended the “Suicide During Matches” rule to find a solution that pleases both the players and the viewers.
The official statement reads:
“After a careful internal review, we are reverting this decision. We will engage in a deeper discussion about the rule in question with the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association to ensure that all efforts to improve the viewing experience for fans at home are fully aligned with all relevant stakeholders.”
While announcing the suspension of this article, ESL went on to reveal that the rule was implemented “to discourage actions that negatively affected the competition based on recent experiences and community feedback in the German ESL National Championship.”
Neither ESL nor CSPPA were available for comments on the matter at the time of writing.
Aditya Rawat is a staff writer for AFK Gaming.
