Three of us (ueyuey, schnapoon, haflblue) are suspected of running bots that win trade with each other, and were refused to continue playing in ZenSports Cup.

ueyuey：https://twitter.com/uey_uesama schnapoon: https://twitter.com/schnapoon haflblue: https://twitter.com/Halfblue13

■Here is a chronological summary of what happened ...

• Ueyuey and Schnapoon have been at the top of Silver LB for quite some time since last year.
• Some players in the community get upset that we are running bots and win trading.
• They go out of their way to find the battle history between the two of us, compulsively take screenshots, and post them in the community discord.
• We initially took it lightly, we were like “Who on earth are going to believe that?” and so we did not make a big fuss about it.
• Zensports recently started to hold more tournaments.
• Three of us (ueyuey, schnapoon, haflblue) started to finish at the top in those tournaments.
• Yet another Zensports tournament (ZenSports Cup) is held, and we made it through to the main round.
• We were informed by the Zensports admin that we are now banned from competing further in the main round and all future Zensports tournaments, due to suspected cheating.

■We were banned from the tournament

I (ueyuey), schnapoon and halfblue participated in the ZenSports Cup Quallflerni, and all of us made it through. Just as we were about to start the main tournament, we were suddenly banned from the tournament, and also from joining any future ZenSports Cup tournaments.

ZenSports admin says that this was because I made a registration error, and, was running a bot to illegally go up the ladder.

The registration error per se was simply our fault for not fully grasping the procedure partly because of our language barrier (English is not our first language), and I do think that part is fair.

But “running a bot!?!?” Seriously.

Let’s see what admin said -

Zensports：
Hey guys,
I would like to preface this by saying it is unfortunate that we have come to this, and I am grateful that you have played in past events of ours and enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, due to both the egregious evidence of bot usage in the Splinterlands ranked ladder, the backlash we receive from having you play in our events, and the fact that none of you filled out the ZenSportsia WL application form (necessary for playing in the ZenSportsia Cup), I have removed you from the event this weekend.

I hope you understand the decision is not a personal one, but rather one for our community as a whole, as we receive tons of complaints about having you play in our tournaments.

I am happy to answer any questions you may have about the decision. This was not an easy one for me to make, but a necessary one for the overall integrity of our events.

Schnapoon：
Hey, thanks for getting back to me.
"the egregious evidence of bot usage in the Splinterlands ranked ladder".
What does that mean?
We couldn't help but understand the ZenSportsia WL application case, but if the bot evidence proves to be wrong, we would like to see this case resolved as well.

Zensports：
I understand, but I have been sent quite a few messages, from multiple members of the community with screenshots of games where one player surrendered to one of your accounts. The backlash I get is currently not worth it, but if there is a way to prove no cheating has been going on to us and the community, I would most definetly allow you all in future events.

So the question comes - are we really bots?

NO. WE ARE NOT BOTS.
We also see that recently, people around us who have nothing to do with us have fallen victim to the false accusation as well. With much love for Splinterlands, we want to say this kind of behaviour is very detrimental to the development of the community and also towards new players.

The alleged “proof” of us being malicious bots and win trading are mere screenshots of surrenders in ranked battles and the fact that some of the decks submitted by losing sides being a bit weird (Monsters with no attacks placed in back line etc.).
Let us ask you this - Have you ever wanted to surrender when your opponent has extremely higher CP than you do or when you cannot use your favourite splinters under a specific rule? Take a look at the battle history of top players in LB. You can often see that losing sides surrendering or submitting decks that don’t really make sense.
Some just instantly give up on battles against players with much higher CP, or for others it might even be a strategic act to avoid showing their battle history to other opponents.
Those of you who have ever done this, does that make you a win trading bot? Definitely no.

Our Background

I (ueyuey) started playing Splinterlands back in August 2021. And I immediately fell in love with this game. I played for a few months and spent a great time studying cards, strategically not going up to the Gold Leagues, but focusing on the Silver. I put a lot of time into this game and gained a great deal of experience. Thanks to that, I started to win tournaments in Silver around November. Even to this day, I have still been researching strategies and studying cards day by day.

I also post the strategies I discover in the course of my daily research on Twitter. Here is an explanation of the countermeasures against Lamacron, for example (Please use Google Translate for Japanese):
~~~ embed:1464742522765262851?s=20&t=gmvTi40jDhMP3mr57i0REQ twitter metadata:dWV5X3Vlc2FtYXx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS91ZXlfdWVzYW1hL3N0YXR1cy8xNDY0NzQyNTIyNzY1MjYyODUxfA== ~~~

Schnapoon and Halfblue, they are Japanese players like myself and we met online in a Japanese Splinterlands community. Though we never personally met with each other, one thing I am certain is that both Schnapoon and Halfblue’s love for Splinterlands aren’t any smaller than mine and they continue to study every day as well.
They stream their battles on Youtube, by the way. ( I do it sometimes too) Link below.

Ueyuey：

Schnapoon：
Halfblue：

We also have daily discussions together on battle strategies.
Sometimes we even train with each other in Challenge mode. Not only the three of us, but the Japanese community is also very active in discussing battle strategies on a daily basis.
Thanks to those daily hard work, the three of us can often finish at the top of the LB/tournaments.
So nothing has been more absurd than hearing stuff like “Oh Schnapoon and Halfblue are ueyuey’s bots”.

Are all good players bots?

Do you guys know how long professional Esports players practice in their games? They practice 10+ hours daily, they discuss and train with their teammates every single day.
We do think that even what we are doing currently is nowhere near as the true professional players’ efforts, and so we believe there will be a great deal of professional players who are better than us in the future. When that happens, would the community keep complaining and casting stones at those professional players like they are doing to us now?
So many times have I been addressed terribly, insulted in various ways in discord for a long time. I haven't particularly argued against them because I simply did not care if the hate was just on me. However, I am utterly disappointed with the recent attacks on other players around me and it eventually even started to have an impact on the official Zensports events, and it was about time that I finally type this out.
Splinterlands is a great game and will keep growing as an Esports, no one can argue against that. However, I just want everyone to know that this kind of community behaviour really hinders the growth of the game, and the long term sustainability of the community.

Thank you for reading, have a great day!

Our ban has been revoked.　（2022/5/1 Postscript）

We received an apology from zensports for the three of us. And we will be able to participate in the tournament from now on.
Thanks to the cooperation of many people. We are very grateful.