As part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining the integrity of Arena and Rated Battleground ladders, we’ve been scouring the ladders regularly for players who engage in win-trading, boosting, and other such harmful activities. Historically, disqualifications have only taken place once a season has concluded, but we’ve been performing these investigations throughout Warlords Season 3.
As a result, we’ve identified a number of accounts—over 6,000 in total throughout the season—that had engaged in such behavior. These players were explicitly and purposefully disrupting the rated ladders in an attempt to gain or provide other players an unfair advantage and/or rewards that they didn’t deserve. As a result, the accounts that were identified as benefiting from these actions, as well as the accounts of the players who performed them, have been disqualified from earning rewards in Warlords Season 3. Among the most recently affected players were some from teams that had qualified for our upcoming Road to BlizzCon 2016 regional tournaments. Following a thorough investigation of these accounts, these players are also disqualified—and as stated in the official tournament rules (NA, EU), these players are now ineligible to continue competing in this year’s Road to BlizzCon. Affected teams will be contacted by Blizzard and allowed to use their one roster swap (if available) to bring in another player so that they can continue competing. Should a team be unable to maintain a roster of at least three players, they will be disqualified and replaced with the runner-up team from the same qualifier cup. We are committed to upholding the integrity and competitive nature of our ladders. We’re looking forward to a truly epic Road to BlizzCon, and can’t wait to see how things progress into Regionals and the Legion expansion. |