CLG Red's promotion to Advanced League leaves the community seeing red
The ladies of CLG Red were given the pleasant surprise of being promoted to ESEA's new Advanced League yesterday, ending their seven season streak of being hard stuck in Main.
Their elation was quickly stifled, however, as countless community members took to the ESEA forums, reddit, and Twitter to express their disdain for the league's decision to place them in the new division, currently the only gateway to MDL and beyond.
While the bulk of the complaints attributed their promotion to their being female and insinuating favoritism as key factors, a few remained level-headed and proposed statistical arguments that were worth noting.
John "Drenit" is the captain of Prescription Death, a team that narrowly missed playoffs as they finished in the 33rd spot on the ladder, separated only by a single round difference between them and tnt is Dynamite, the final team to make the playoff cutoff. Their team is one of many with similar or better records than CLG Red at the end of Season 27, giving the argument credence.
So why in the world would the 58th ranked team be more deserving of the coveted spot over any of the other teams that preceeded them on the ladder, with better records no less? While ESEA is in no position to have to explain themselves, social justice requires either blood or good and thoughtful reason to quel the ravenous community when they feel justice has not been served.
To begin to understand ESEA's decision we must first consider the process that led to CLG Red's promotion. Upon the announcement of the Advanced Division, ESEA noted towards the bottom of the post that they would be "bulking up the Advanced division through our invitation process to guarantee that all teams who have proven they are able to compete at that level are able to do so."
CLG Red undoubtedly have enough LAN achievements and history to fit the criteria ESEA requires to qualify for an invitation, but the following snippet from the very same post leaves one scratching their head in confusion:
We would rather be more conservative and invite only the teams who undoubtedly belong in a higher division than push out a rushed system which may flood the higher division with teams who will struggle to compete there and devalue the status of being in a higher league.
There is no ambiguity in the above verbiage, and many would be hard-pressed to evaluate a team with seven consecutive seasons without a playoff run as "undoubtedly" belonging in a higher division.
Further intrigue has been thrown onto the fire by Manousos "fows" Kouidis, who in his own Reddit thread alleged that ESEA are censoring conversation of the move up on their forums and even going so far as to ban users.
While CLG Red have gotten a bulk of the attention in regards to the move ups, there are undoubtedly other controversial decisions that were made by ESEA. Are you a member of a team that applied for Advanced and was denied? State your case below!
