Written by Glenn | 03 May 2011

The tournament organizers with Evolution have penalized Justin Wong for what happened during one of his Marvel vs. Capcom 3 matches at PowerUp 2011. They said he was "intentionally underperforming" in the Second Semifinals against Noel Brown.

Justin will receive a "yellow card" violation. A second violation and he will be disqualified from the world finals, scheduled for July 29-31 in Las Vegas.

Some of the word from Evolution:

Justin is NOT being cited for losing. Everyone misses combos, makes a wrong guess, gets "upset" by a player perceived to be weaker, or just plain loses. All of that is of course acceptable. He also explained that he had not been practicing MVC3, and so was "rusty." We of course understand that a player may not be in top shape for every game they play in, and that a player may not end up performing well on any given day.

The issue, however, is not that Justin lost. It was HOW he lost, coupled with the fact that his loss would benefit a close friend.

There was no punishment made for the latter portion of the brackets being altered by the PowerUp tournament organizers because of reported requests by the players. However, Tony Cannon, one of the Evolution staff, said there were some "serious errors in judgment" regarding the alterations.

This is Justin's response:

I did not intentionally lose to Noel Brown. As many know and saw, I was losing matches and dropping combos all weekend in MvC3. My main focus as of late has been MK and the upcoming PDP event, and I think my results at this event pretty much reflect that shift in focus. In the match with Noel, I did what I have done a lot in this game, picked something out of the ordinary to confuse my opponent. It worked in the first game, but not in the second. I then switched to my main team and it went down to the wire with Noel winning 3-2. Everyone knows I play wacky stuff, and this is not the first time I have chosen wacky teams/characters in tournaments. This is just my strategy sometimes. I play very unique things and I shouldn't be penalized for what I have doing for years, just because I did it against a good friend and lost. I have asked EVO to reconsider their decision, but this is their event series and their call to make. I will not apologize for this play-style, but I do apologize to my fans and my teammates and management at Team Evil Geniuses for the drama this has caused. I hope my true fans realize this was just a match I lost. It does happen.

 

 

More regarding the decision can be found on Shoryuken.