During a official Mortal Kombat 11 Pro Kompetition tournament on January 16, finalist Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified after calling developer NetherRealm Studios by labeling his variation Sheeva – a custom moveset that displays a personalized name for opponents – as “WhyDidNRSdoThis”.
Disqualification caused an awkward moment in the chain. When the official broadcast cut from the game in the top 8 in just a few minutes, commentators Housam “Mitsuownes” Cherif and Miguel “Darth Arma” Perez were at a loss as to what to say to explain what happened.
“Unfortunately, it looks like we have a little problem here and someone is … we have a problem,” Perez told viewers while he and his partner seemed to be listening to the producers on their headphones. “I don’t know what we can say publicly, but we definitely have a problem here.”
Shortly afterwards, Perez said that Titaniumtigerzz’s opponent would advance despite the game not being officially decided. No reason was given, but Perez continued to remind everyone to “obey the rules … everyone has to be respectful”, which implies that that was the reason Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified without showing up and saying so. NetherRealm Studios and parent company WB Games did not respond to Kotakurequests for comment.
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The name of the variation, Titaniumtigerzz said Kotaku, was to be a very mild criticism of Sheeva’s strengths.
“It was supposed to be funny, since the character I was using is basically extremely easy,” Titaniumtigerzz explained to me via DM. “The joke was, ‘Why would they make a character so easy?'”
Sheeva has been a hot topic in the competition Mortal Kombat 11 lately due to her Dragon Drop attack on Titaniumtigerzz says the move, which cannot be blocked, can be used in almost any situation to put Sheeva in a more favorable position. It became such a problem that the best players dedicated entire videos to explain how to overcome this attack.
Titaniumtigerzz and his opponent were not informed of the disqualification immediately and continued to play their set off-stream for a few minutes. After being notified, he would have been left without knowing why he was disqualified and had no chance to rectify or contest the situation. Titaniumtigerzz says a tournament moderator told him that the decision had to do with his variation name.
“They banned me the first game I used the name,” said Titaniumtigerzz. “No opportunity [to change the name] it was given and no one reached out to me. I would have changed it instantly if I had had the option. “
While the official Pro Kompetition rules Do not specifically mention these types of protests, the section of the code of conduct gives organizers the freedom to disqualify players for any reason.
Since disqualification, the hashtag #WhyDidNRSDoThis spread across the Mortal combat community on Twitter, and Titaniumtigerzz said Kotaku he received a lot of support from other players who disagreed with the decision. He also said problems with Mortal Kombat 11 and last week’s disqualification will not prevent you from playing in future tournaments.
“It’s professional competition and I’m a competitive player,” explained Titaniumtigerzz. “I may hate how they do things, but at the end of the day it is their game and I have no other options.”