What a week huh.
Hey everyone, Pippa here to share some of my thoughts regarding the recent events happening within the community. Given my proximity to the events in several different forms I have had a lot to discuss and think about over the last several days. This will be less of an article and more of a summary and where I stand on everything, so this may end up a bit more rambly than normal. If anyone wanted the short and sweet; cheating bad, trust within the community is a double-edged sword, and UVS Games’ reputation makes it difficult to parse situations that involve the community. If you want the long of it, let me get into that right now.
*As a quick note, I will primarily be focusing on Jose Norono as he is the center of everything. Player Omar Soubra was found out to be cheating due to it, however that is a simple case of getting caught and banned and doesn’t need much further elaboration.
The Situation
Recently UVS Games hosted the Dark Tournament Wish event, where players participated in a modified standard format tournament with the grand prize being one of three phenomenal prizes, the most prestigious being able to create a card to be released into UVS, similar to the prize for winning major tournaments in the pre-MHA era.
To date this, it took place on March 9-10th, and I was one of the casters for the event, including casting the grand finals where Jose Norono took the set to minimal surprise of the ingrained community. Jose is known as the “Webcam King” due to his repeated dominance in webcam events, and as one of the most decorated players of the game he was the clear favorite to win the event.
Three days later on Wednesday March 13th, Jose received an email from UVS Games noting that he had been banned from play for two years, with the listed reason being “Cheating - Major”. Shortly following this, UVS Games made an announcement saying that the recent results of the Wish Tournament had been adjusted, and the runner-up Mitchell Cimino was crowned the new Wish Tournament Champion.
Following this announcement, players began digging through the matches hosted on the official stream to try to glean information as to what happened. During this, player Omar Soubra was found to have cheated during his top 8 match, causing him to win the set and inevitably finish within the top 4 of the tournament.
The following day, on Thursday March 14th evidence was found of Jose manipulating his cards and adding a card he shouldn’t have to his hand while a card that should have been in his hand disappeared from play never to be seen again. This was captured on the stream of Tamren Cardwell, who was streaming his tournament run and ran into Jose in round 6 of the event while both were 4-1, meaning a loss would eliminate either of them from top cut contention.
As several additional notes regarding everything, Omar was issued a ban following the discovery of his cheating and has since bowed out of the community with an apology. Jose has not released a statement publicly and has disappeared from the community. While not entirely relevant, both players were part of team Unfunstuff, one of the best and most respected teams in the game (this is relevant for a point later). Lastly, UVS Games, other than the initial announcement, has not released a statement or more information regarding the events that have transpired.
The Community Reaction
Before moving onto this section, I wanted to briefly discuss what I mean by “the community” as I will be referring to this nebulous group of people extensively. UVS as a game has one of the most tightly-knit communities of all card games, given the lack of significant playerbase and the passion people have for the game. From here, there are several main avenues of communication for the community, with the primary one being the official Discord, with the community Facebook (Meta) group being the second largest way of disseminating information. As an additional option, several creator discords have also been significant locations of discussion for the most dedicated players, of which the largest and most involved is Andrew Holder’s discord, where Jose maintained communication following his banning, though has since gone silent as evidence against him has come out.
All of these locations are where the vocal and ingrained part of the community reside, which I am unsure how to categorize. While it is the vocal minority, the community is small enough for it to be a large minority, though obviously this assumption is anecdotal based on my view of how many people I have interacted with and how many I see regularly interacting with others in public spaces. When I mention “the community”, take this into account as I am primarily discussing the players who regularly socialize with the wider playerbase. Obviously, there are people who don’t interact and are not representative of the community reactions, and “the community” is not a blanket statement meant to cover the wider playerbase that the game encompasses, only the vocal portion of it.
Following the announcement of the ban and the overturning of the results of the event, Jose said that he received no communication about the banning and was just as surprised as everyone else. The community was whipped up into a frenzy (putting it lightly), as Jose was one of the most respected members of the community, and should have been informed of the reason.
The primary discussion point discussed was that Jose should have been given communication regarding his ban, as he stated was as in-the-dark as the community about his banning. Leaping off-of this, members of the community began deviating from this point, requesting community-wide clarification regarding the incident as it was a banning that hit one of the biggest players of the game and the overturning of event results, something that has not occurred since I started playing the game in 2021. UVS Games noted that they keep details about suspensions from play only to relevant parties, which was taken as stonewalling by the community.
While that was the primary argument discussed throughout the community, it was compounded with UVS Games’ reputation, or lack thereof regarding communication. Unfortunately, UVS Games has a track record of poor communication and decision-making, making the Jose communication situation a metaphorical straw breaking the camel's back. Players were outraged at how UVS handled the situation and demanding further clarification, which at points was twisted into an argument that UVS Games should communicate with the community directly to clear up the situation (which didn’t happen, though more on that later).
Furthering on this, Jose was one of the most beloved members of the community. Countless stories were shared about interactions with Jose, about how welcoming, kind, and amazing he has been, and how he has positively impacted so many people in the community. A large portion of the ingrained community was dumbstruck at the banning, assuring it must have been a mistake, given Jose’s stellar reputation combined with the lack of apparent communication to Jose about the banning.
On the other side of the isle, other arguments and opinions were expressed. Members discussed that UVS Games wouldn’t do this without reason, and people that hadn’t interacted with Jose expressed general distrust due to not knowing him. This was swiftly met with rebuttal as people who had known Jose had faith in him due to being an upstanding and outstanding member of the community, along with the prior-mentioned reputation of UVS Games making it difficult to side with them.
Ultimately, as the evidence broke and people started processing it, an overwhelming sense of betrayal set into the community. Questions of trust spread, people wondering how long this has been going on, what other events Jose could have negatively affected, and a serious topic of the integrity of webcam events with two of the top 4 players of the Wish event being caught cheating.
Since the news broke, I have taken a step back from everything and have not witnessed much of the fallout since, though I assume that while it has breezed over in terms of discussion, the wound is still fresh for many members of the community. I would like to review everything as a whole and offer thoughts on how to proceed moving forward.
Trust and Cheating
If you ask any member of the ingrained UVS community, nearly everyone will tell you the same thing; UVS has the greatest community in all of gaming. The level of passion each member of the community has is unmatched compared to other games, and generally we are all trying to be as supportive as possible to expand our community. Jose was a shining example of this, with the countless number of stories being shared of him positively interacting with community members, it would be accurate to describe him as one of the pillars of the community.
To have someone so deep into the community and beloved by so many being found to be cheating was truly gut-wrenching and has forced players to confront a tough reality; anyone can cheat, even players who have shown themselves to be pivotal members of the community. And for one such as Jose, known as the “Webcam King”, has shattered much of the general trust within the community as a whole.
Webcam play has always been a touchy subject when it comes to cheating. The clunkiness of the format and the controlled surroundings mean that it is astronomically easier to cheat over webcam compared to in-person, and I would be lying if I hadn’t thought about how easy it would be to get away with it, as I am sure others have pondered as well. Bad actors exist, and will continue to as long as events are happening and they feel safe enough to get away with it.
The Jose incident has specifically highlighted and brought to attention the ease of cheating, and the further conversation on the lax mentality regarding behaviors that enable cheating, such as players taking their physical hands of screen or taking any of the cards they are handling off screen. Enforcement of the proper policy is minimal, with countless streamed matches being dissected and noted about how infrequently the rules on keeping cards in view are upheld.
While this is a serious matter which will now be heavily monitored and enforced going forward, I do not believe that UVS Games is solely at fault for this, though that is certainly part of the issue. The lack of a proper judge program has been one of the primary discussion points brought up, as the judges do this out of a passion for the game and (generally) lack adequate training in terms of tournament procedures and enforcing rules, especially when it comes to judging on stream.
I wanted to discuss the other part of this, which is the communities lack of self-policing about this ruling as well. As someone who has played extensively over webcam, and to the other community members who have also played over webcam, I have an honest question; how many times have you witnessed an opponent move hands off screen, and then how many times have you actually called a judge about the situation? I for one, have noticed it an uncountable number of times and never once called a judge on it, not that I haven’t thought about it, nor have I had a judge called on myself over personal infractions I am sure I have made over the several years of playing over webcam.
I generally lean on the more conservative side of everything, understanding that webcam is an awkward format, and trusting in my fellow competitors to not violate my trust. Furthering on this, having a player's hand leave the screen momentarily is small enough beans for me to not repeatedly call a judge over for every infraction. Expanding on this however, how is a judge supposed to resolve a situation of cards leaving the screen? The infraction would have already occurred at the time, and without either player recording it, the most they can do is to give a warning and move on. Having a judge sit in on the game to monitor if any other infractions occur is also not feasible with the limited judging staff combined with the amount of attendance each event gets.
While I am not solely blaming the community on this, I did want to make a point out the inconsistency in the narrative of “UVS Games cultivating an environment which allowed this to happen” when as players of the game we have also done a poor job of policing our peers on this issue. If you have been vigilant about this and are quick to point it out, understand that from my experience, a vast amount of the community has also failed to do due diligence in maintaining our respect of the rules, me included.
This is also not a call for a draconian mandate requiring players to strictly enforce the floor rules, but the community does bear some responsibility for ensuring that our fellow players are not given ample opportunities to take advantage of the in-built trust we have for each other within our community. As an unfortunate effect of the Jose incident, we may have to be more discerning as a general community towards webcam play, but I do not believe that is necessarily a bad thing given the ease of abuse for events with this format.
In the end, blame resides on both UVS Games and the community for lax enforcement of webcam play rules, though each side has varying responsibilities and approaches towards solving the issues presented. UVS Games should invest in a proper judge program and training in order for not only stream judges, but judges generally to be able to handle situations with ease in the future. My sincerest thanks go to every judge involved with the game as it is a thankless job, and it is not their fault for having minimal resources on handling events and interactions.
The community on the other hand will also need to strive towards being better at combating sources of potential avenues for cheating. Not only should we get used to telling the opponent to keep cards on screen at all times (kindly), but personal initiatives can also be taken such as getting better angles for webcams to communicate board states effectively, but potential additional dedicated “hand cams” to ensure further fair play.
Either way, this will be a large growing experience for anyone involved in the game competitively, and while I wish things can move on all hunky-dory, significant changes will be required to maintain the competitive integrity of webcam play. This isn’t something that can be resolved simply from UVS Games throwing more judges into every event, and will require the community as a whole to step up and keep each other accountable as well.
Moving on from this specific instance of cheating, Jose’s credibility has been destroyed leading players to collectively ponder about the extent of his potential cheating. The argument of “What if Jose is lying” came up numerous times during the 24 hours between his ban and the evidence coming out, and while discredited initially, it is a harsh reality players have been faced with since. Jose cheated. How much can you trust him? He was almost entirely discredited, bringing into question all of his interactions with the community? And beyond that, how many webcam events has he potentially cheated in? How many of the outcomes could have changed?
Communication
Something that muddied the situation further is the reputation UVS Games has in regard to communicating with the community. Almost everyone has heard of some issue or another when it comes to UVS Games’ public relations, from statements being walked back, conflicting information from different official channels not lining up, and overall sluggish nature in terms of responding to the community on various issues and topics. With all of this in mind, the community is always incredibly on-edge when it comes to announcements or communication of any form.
These issues compounded with the trust the community had in Jose, causing an uproar of colossal proportions. It shocked no one to hear that Jose hadn’t received communication regarding his ban, which is horrible to admit, and caused players to spiral and create a varied number of narratives regarding the event. One of the most popular was that Jose was “banned for being too good”, given he seems to win every webcam event and UVS banned him for winning too much. While this is an insane narrative on review, it further shows the lack of trust the community has in relation to UVS, and the antagonistic relationship the two parties have towards each other.
Of course, other members of the community had a more level approach, noting that UVS wouldn’t ban a star player without good reason, but this was quickly beaten back by a flurry of “but Jose wouldn’t cheat” from all of the positive interactions he has given to the community and the blind faith we have in our players. I am very thankful that so many people are willing to defend actions of each other based on good faith, however it does make trying to disseminate information or have a civil conversation impossible. Anything construed as being against Jose or siding with UVS Games was met with vitriol and discredited, and while there were individuals intentionally stoking the fire, I saw numerous arguments quashed and dogpiled, or misconstrued to be combatted vigorously.
Following the evidence of Jose cheating being released I have seen people sit atop a throne of “I told you so”-isms, and while ultimately correct, I want people to be able to understand why people defended Jose so zealously. To many he was an acquaintance, friend, and even mentor. He was a model community member, someone willing to engage with anyone, someone who brought so many people into this game, as well as countless smiles and positive interactions to people already playing who were fortunate enough to meet him. If you never met Jose, you cannot begin to fathom the passion he has for the game and the impact he made on so many, to the point that it was inconceivable for him to have cheated for so many members of the community. The argument of “any player can lie, and any player can cheat” didn’t apply to Jose, couldn’t apply to him in the eyes of many, because he made such a positive impact in the community. When evidence of his cheating was brought to light it dumbfounded a large portion of the community, rightfully so.
I wanted to take a moment to bring attention to the way the community discusses events such as these, and the inevitable riots that break out within the discord as people are ready to reach for their pitchforks at the drop of a hat. Tension within the community is always high, with the pervading mindset of counting down the days until the next questionable decision or communication is made. As players we have such distrust of the company UVS Games, rightfully so, however it can and has led to rash decisions and outcomes.
I am by no means defending UVS Games, they have earned their reputation for good reason, with the common opinion being that UVS is the “best game run by the worst company”. Despite this, players stick around for the game. We are the most passionate community by a long shot, and if it weren’t for the game and the community, I have no doubt that many players would have jumped ship by now. We as a community have a valid reason for calling out UVS Games, because we want the company running our favorite game to work towards a brighter future.
I wish I had an answer for the relations between UVS Games and the playerbase of UVS. It isn’t as simple as “do better”, it isn’t as simple as “train judges better”, it isn’t as simple as “just enforce the rules”, it isn’t as simple as “just talk to the community”. Even though UVS Games was ultimately correct in their actions taken against Jose regarding the incident, how they handled the situation was far from perfect. They failed to do the bare minimum in communicating with Jose about the ban even if it was justified, which is entirely valid criticism.
Past that however, how were they supposed to handle the situation? Keeping quiet on the intimate details of bannings is standard procedure, and overturning the results of the event makes sense if the individual who won it did so through illicit means. Assuming Jose was informed of the reason and had accepted it, the community would have been in almost as much of an outrage for seeing one of the pillars of the community being “wrongfully” targeted. The only way I could envision this to not have ended as it did would have been for UVS Games to inform Jose of why he was banned, and for him to inform the wider community from there, though he has repeatedly denied what has happened, further muddying the waters. The end result is another riot inside the community, more fractured relationships between the playerbase and UVS Games, and another event to point to in the timeline of “UVS communication bad”.
Expectations
Well, where do we go from here? The situation has been as clarified as it is going to be, the community at large has moved on, though I am sure countless members are still working on processing the events of the last week. UVS Games has had the biggest cheating scandal since I started playing the game, and arguably the biggest in the game's long history. One of the pillars of the community has been outcast, and webcam play going forward is going to be facing scrutiny unlike ever before.
I don’t expect UVS Games to change overnight, to adopt better communication strategies, to devote additional resources towards judging and event organization. However, I do expect them to at the very least keep these recent events in mind while working toward improving where they can, when they can. It isn’t unreasonable for a community to want a company to do better, but the rate of change the community does want can, at times, be unreasonable.
No one likes to give UVS Games as much shit as the vocal minority of the community, but we are so vocal because we care. We care about UVS the game, we care about the community, we care about trying to make sure this game doesn’t just survive as it has for so long, we want to see it truly thrive like I know every player believes it can.
Change is slow, aggravatingly so. As much as people love to point out each and every mishap with the game, with the company, we cannot argue that they haven’t been working towards being better. When the news about Draft being a format featured at the highest level of competitive events, they listened and removed the format for high-level events. This may be a small win in a perceived ocean of poor decisions, but any amount of improvement is still improvement.
I “hate” UVS Games as much as the next fan, but only because of how much better I know the game and company can be. I don’t expect change to be as immediate as some community members, but I still expect it. I believe as a community we need to temper our expectations, while also understanding that criticism to “do better” is entirely valid, but slow to enact.
Moving onto webcam play and competitive integrity, there are simple solutions we as a community can work towards enacting, while larger more systemic issues need to be addressed by UVS Games. The community can only remain vigilant to a certain extent, so UVS Games needs to add further safeguards such as enforcing webcam rules more strictly and properly training judges on how to handle these situations.
As a community we can make change immediately, but for UVS Games any adjustments in policy, enforcement, and training will take time, and players need to understand that. Obviously there is a “soft time limit” in terms of how long is reasonable for them to implement changes, if any, but in light of recent events I believe we could reasonably expect some changes in terms of the webcam format in the near future.
The bigger blow to the community however is how much general trust has been undermined, with players now on edge to analyze every minute detail of each game, which while understandable, will make serious webcam play much more difficult and straining for the foreseeable future. This may not seriously negatively impact the playerbase as a whole, but it will lurk in the back of people's minds and force them to second-guess normally harmless interactions over webcam play, even with the “greatest community in gaming”.
My Personal Thoughts
I am in a unique position regarding the situation. I casted the Wish tournament, including the specific game where Omar cheated as well as the finals where Jose was temporarily crowned. I am also part of Unfunstuff, the team that both Jose and Omar were from. I considered Jose a friend, and while I never seriously interacted with Omar I still considered us on friendly terms due to being under the same umbrella of the team.
I will need to state this even though it should be obvious, but I do not condone nor support the actions of either of my team members. Cheating is vile, and both players were rightfully banned. I also shouldn’t need to state this, but Unfunstuff is not a shadowy cabal that harbors cheaters and scoundrels as some may insinuate. We are just a loose group of friends who enjoy a niche card game, and while some of you may have a nickle for each time an Unfunstuff player cheated in a big tournament, these were the actions perpetrated by individuals and do not reflect on Unfunstuff as a whole.
Betrayal is a complicated emotion. As with everyone else I have been working through it, and as someone who considered Jose a friend it stings that little bit extra. The worst part however is having to reflect on every moment spent with who I assumed was my friend, and question if it was “legitimate”. The numerous positive stories of Jose paint the picture of a deeply caring, brilliant, and passionate individual, all of which I am having to question looking back. I know that realistically I should try and remember the best of him rather than the worst, but that will take far more time to occur than has been spent since the incident.
While the Wish event will go down in history as the largest cheating scandal to grace UVS the game and thus will be remembered negatively, I did want to at least try and throw as much of a positive spin on it as possible. While Showdown and Surviving the Final will be remembered as the “Jose Cards”, I want them to at least be mentioned so with a laugh rather than a scowl. I know that whenever either player plays Showdown I will be asking “where did you find that?”, while Surviving the Final will receive the inverse “I found it!” Making jokes may not suit the situation exactly, but I would rather look back and laugh about how silly spawning in a Showdown “like a magician” is rather than remembering the betrayal from seeing through the magic trick.
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