DreamHack's Hearthstone tournament winner accused of cheating
But opponent speaks out in support of co-player.
The winner of yesterday's DreamHack Hearthstone tournament has become embroiled in a controversy surrounding messages received from friends during the final match.
Radu 'RDU' Dima beat Team Liquid's Jason 'Amaz' Chan by three games to nil to take home a $10,000 prize pot. You can view the match in the video below.
During the second of the final's three games, Dima began receiving messages of support from players on his Battle.net account list. One such message, received at 24.52 in the tournament video, reveals the contents of his opponent's hand.
When the match concluded, Dima reported the incident to tournament officials, who cleared both player's friends list before the final was resumed. Dima ultimately won the competition 3-0 after officials reviewed earlier footage and determined that the information would not have affected the outcome of the match.
The controversy has been fuelled, however, after viewers examined earlier footage of the best-of-five final. At around 18:54 in the broadcast videos, RDU receives two similarly themed "Hi mum" messages from players on his Battle.net account. It's been speculated that these messages amounted to a coded warning that RDU's opponent Amaz had just drawn the powerful Leeroy Jenkins legendary card.
For his part, Amaz has spoken up in support of the winner, posting a video to YouTube about the incident from his hotel room shortly after the incident.
"RDU is definitely not cheating, he's not cheating," he said.
"Sometimes you get into the finals and your friends are getting crazy and they just make bad mistakes and what-not. I don't like that there are so many negative comments about RDU. He's not cheating, he can't help it... I think RDU deserves all the attention and the happiness of winning the tournament.
"It's a big tournament and he should feel happy and not shot down by so many people. Maybe you're rooting for me, but I made a lot of mistakes, especially in Game 1. I accept the defeat."
DreamHack's organisers have yet to comment on yesterday's events. Hopefully, measures will be taken to prevent a similar occurrence in future tournaments.