These rules for the Defense of The Ancients are decided and written by the World DotA Council and they apply for all WDC Approved Tournaments. The Storm the Front headadmins reserve the right to modify the rules and regulations upon necessary, without notice. 
It is encouraged to review these rules and regulations from time to time in order to be apprised of any changes.

Version: Warcraft III Frozen Throne expansion set v.1.24e
Map: DotA ver. 6.67c
Tournament is played in single-elimination mode
Competition Method in Round 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 (Best of Three Games)
Competition Method in Semi-Finals: BO3 (Best of Three Games) 
Competition Method in 3rd place decider: BO5 (Best of Five Games)
Competition Method in Grand Finals: BO5 (Best of Five Games)
Match Winner: The team who destroys the opponent's throne/world tree first, or if the opponent surrender.
Platform: GArena (www.garena.com) 


1.3 GAME SETTINGS:

Drafting Mode: Captains Mode (-cm typed in game)
Game Speed: Fast
Banned Hero: none

1.4 MATCH PROCEDURES:

Matches are played according to the tournament structure and the schedule provided by the tournament officials.

Participants are encouraged to keep themselves informed about the schedule in order to avoid any delay or default loss. A team receives a def win in the case of their opponents not showing up in 20 minutes after the scheduled time.

The Home team starts as Sentinel, and in the next game the Away team is playing as Sentinel.
The draft starter is randomly chosen. Do not type -cm1 or -cm2 unless both teams agree on it in Match page.
(example: Team FaP vs Team aD in this case Team FaP is the Home Team)

The official GArena channels:

War 3 RPG > League > Storm The Front DotA Room 1
War 3 RPG > League > Storm The Front DotA Room 2
War 3 RPG > League > Storm The Front DotA Room 3

The participating teams will receive passwords for these channels; these passwords are to be kept secret.  


1.5 TEAMS AND PLAYERS:

Each team must have a team captain who has to introduce himself to tournament admins, he will be the main reference for any issues may arise. It can be one of the team's players or a team manager. 
If the team captain changes the admin team has to be informed immediately. Team captain changes are only allowed during play day three. Team captains have to be present in the IRC Channel #CMSTORM.DotA (Quakenet), also an MSN and Email has to be added to the teams’ account on the webpage. Teams are allowed to have an organizer (manager) for scheduling purposes.

An active player is bound to one team throughout the whole tournament period. Playing for multiple teams in the same tournament may result in the disqualification of involved teams.

A team can add up to two players during the tournament progress, upon admins' approval, but only at two occasions, after round three and six.
The players to add are none of the players of other participating teams as each player is bound to one team throughout the whole event. 

A team that plays with a non-registered - non-approved player will have a default loss for every game where that player participated, and the player will be banned from this and the next tournament. Ringers are not allowed in this tournament. 
  

To find a good host for the game is up to the playing teams. Both teams must agree on the host. In case they cannot agree on any host, an admin will choose a neutral host for the game. Host can be a player or a neutral observer.

Host can be changed in case of problems arising, but both teams must agree on the new host. Each team has to come up with a fair host 15 minutes before the match starts.


1.7 REFEREES (OBSERVERS):

Only the following observers are allowed:
Admins and officially allowed members (by admin staff). It‘s mandatory to let admins observe upon request. If you don‘t let an admin join the game then the penalty is Game Loss or Disqualification).
Streamers (chapter 1.8)
Neutral host (chapter 1.6)
Neutral saver (both teams must agree on it)

1.8 GarenaTV STREAMING:

Game stream is mandatory for all the games played in the Storm the Front DotA tournament. The host of the game must always enable oberserver slots for Referees and offer the first slot for the streamer and the second slot for the referee or neutral host (streamers cannot pause or save games). 

As the streaming doesn't cause lag, you are not to force the streamer to quit from the game lobby and/or start without him/her. Penalty: Warning or Game Loss.
Approved Storm the Front streamers can be found at the tournament's official IRC channel: #CMStorm.DotA @Quakenet
 

1.9 PLAYDAYS AND SCHEDULE:

Play days and play times must be respected. 
Games not played within the assigned deadline will result in a default loss for both teams.

If a team encounters serious problems in contacting the opponent team and scheduling the game within the assigned Play week, the team captain/manager has to inform admins about it. They will try to contact the missing team as well. If the missing team will give late or absolutely no answers, a def win will be assigned to the opponent team.

Play days & Play times:
The whole week is free for the teams to find a suitable playtime. Make sure to schedule as early as possible though, and to always post on the match page or else the other team gets the dictate power. Whenever you post a date and hour then make sure you do that in by giving the Central European Time. 

Please respect that teams have to be present in the official GArena rooms 20 minutes before the match starts.

Timezone Reference:
www.worldtimezone.com

Teams can schedule the games as follows:
- at the #CMStorm.DotA (Quakenet) official IRC channel. 
- by Instant messenger (MSN) 
- Match page   
Team captains have to be reachable in these two Medias.

Schedules have to be communicated by both team captains to the admin, either via MSN or IRC. It can be done by querying admins in tournament IRC official channel (where admins have operator @ powers), by direct contact with admins, by PMing admins on the Garena forum or by posting in the tournament schedule forum.

Both teams MUST post in the schedule thread what time they agreed on, so that there's a proof that both teams tried to contact each other and that they agreed on a time. If one team does not post in the thread and the game was not played, then they automatically lose the game.
 

1.10 GENERAL BEHAVIOUR:

Participant teams and players must always have good manners and respect other players and the Admin staff/organization.

Teams and players may receive a warning, default loss or disqualification if they or one of its players commits any of the following:
- refuses to follow tournament official rules
- uses insulting language
- makes fun of the opponent players or the admin staff
- shows an unsportsmanlike behavior
- tries to scam admins 

In any of the above cases, if admins are not present, the game has to be played till the end and the replay/screens have be sent to the admins for investigation. 

For reports please use the following email: cups@gamesports.de 

1.11 INVESTIGATION REQUESTS

In case of any complaints and problems which may arise, teams can request an investigation by the admins crew. Investigation requests must always come with adequate and enough proofs. Requests with inadequate or no proofs will not be handled.

Admins reserve the rights to take decisions which are unquestionable.

Tournament Supervisors:
Raphael 'vash' Baur
Matthias 'Losemann' Beyer

Head Referees:
Colborn 'udmn' Wang
Peter 'Beast_Pete' Foldhazi

Match Referees:
Alvin '!d!' Chien
Teo 'Edward' Chi
Lee 'Neoley' Hoe
Lee 'Juzaguy' Leon
Foo 'OwL' Liang
Sandro 'LoKi' Marinelic
Kasper 'TMA' Nielsen

Phillipp 'koik' Schmidtke

Admins are reachable under cups@gamesports.de and in the official channel of Storm the Front: #CMStorm.DotA @Quakenet

Backdooring:
Backdooring is allowed 

Sharing of Items:
Sharing of items is allowed as long as the game permits. It is not allowed to suicide to pass Rapier.

Item Restrictions:
There are no item restrictions 

Abuses & Exploitation:
** Hero Trapping (Warning or Game Loss): 
Intentionally trapping enemies into trees or holes is not allowed.

** Pause/Resume Abuse (Warning or Game Loss):
You may pause at the beginning of the game for tunneling the host and to wait everyone to arrive (maximum of 3 minutes). If the 3 minutes passed, then you must resume and do the hero drafts.
From this point on pausing without any valid reason is disallowed. Resuming the game without the other team confirming that they are ready is not allowed either. Teams that are constantly pausing or resuming to ruin the game will receive a game loss. If someone pauses the game without a valid reason, he will receive a warning.

** Creep Blocking (Warning or Game Loss):
Creep blocking permanently is not allowed but creep slowing/delaying or luring is allowed. It is not allowed to block creeps with the help of spells, such as fissure, sprout etc. it is only allowed to use the hero model to intercept with creeps (accidental blocks are okay, as long as the fissure - for example - was directed at an opposing hero). 

** Base Entrance Blocking (Warning or Game Loss):
It‘s not allowed to intentionally block the base entrance for defensive purpose with the help of spells, such as fissure (accidental blocks are okay, as long as the fissure - for example - was directed at an opposing hero).

*** Bugs Exploitation (Warning, Game Loss or Disqualification):
No Exploitation of any known old or new bug discovered during game play. No excuses will be entertained. Ignorance is not an excuse. Participants/Teams are expected to know what these bugs are. Participants who experience any abnormal game play are advised to inform the admins immediately

Definition of bugs:
Anything abnormal which will give a player/team an unfair advantage. 
Anything which will cause interruption/fatal error to the game.

Cheating (Disqualification):
Any kind of cheat is strictly prohibited. Warkeys/Dotakeys are allowed. 
** The game has to be played till the end in any situations and the replay/screens be sent to the admins for investigation.
*** If the game did not crash, then the game has to be played until the end and the replay be sent to the admins for investigation. 

2.2 DISCONNECTIONS:

Teams are persuaded to save their games frequently during a match in order to compensate for disconnections (every 5th - 10th minutes)

Disconnect before the first hero has been killed: 
match load from the save if exists. 

In case there is not a save after the ban/pick process: teams must take a screenshot with open scoreboard or save the replay, the match has then to be remade in -ap mode with the same heroes/lanes.

Disconnect after the first hero has been killed:
a) If a savegame has been made within the last 10 minutes, then consult the rule below. If not then the game continues without the disconnected player.
b) If the game was saved less than 10 minutes before the disconnection of a player, then the game has to be reloaded unless:

-  The team losing their player wants to continue without a reload
-  The other team destroyed at least one rax and they wish to continue
-  If team 1 have killed 5+ heroes more than team 2 during the time from the last savegame and the disconnection, then the disconnect is in the favor of team 1 which may choose whether to continue the match or remake from the save game.
For example: At the time of the save game the score is 35-35 and at the time of the disconnection the score is 42-37 for team 1

The item Aegis counts for 1 kill 
A tower counts for 3 kills when calculating this, down. 

If neither team is in advantage then an admin should be consulted, unless teams can agree to a decision by themselves.

If the players or the host pulled off, then there will be consequences of that action.

If a disconnected player is not able to be present within 15 minutes, games should be continued without him.Both teams have the right to request a save after big team collisions and when at least one building was destroyed.

After a remake all players have to pick the same heroes as before, buy the same items and must go to the same starting lane. On initial creep contact, the players may change their lanes.

If the same player disconnects more than 2 times, then the opposing team may chose to continue the match without him (the opposite team is allowed to continue without the disconnected player starting from the 3rd disconnection). 

It is allowed to use a disconnected hero, but it is not allowed to give his items to other players. The items may either stay on the disconnected hero, or be sold so the money is dispersed among the remaining players. Consumables are allowed to use up.

Whenever there's a problem that you can't decide just by reading the rules, then always contact one of the admins. You can contact them on the tournament official IRC channel (#CMStorm.DotA).
In case of dispute without reasonable proofs, game has to be replayed.


3. PENALTIES AWARDED:

Player Warning: After a warning is given, the game goes on. If a player accumulates 2 warnings during a tournament, he will be banned from playing the next game. If the player receives his 3rd warning, he gets permanently banned from the tournament.

Team Warning: If a team breaks one of the minor rules or several of its players are warned during a game, then the team receives a warning. If the team collects two warnings, then their last game where they broke the rules will be resulted as a Loss for them no matter what the ingame result was. Upon receiving the third warning, the team gets disqualified from the tournament.

Game Loss: Game loss given to a team means that the team loses the current game no matter what the result of that game is. A win would be awarded to the opponent instead.

Disqualifications: A team disqualified will be ejected from the tournament. They will not be able to further continue the current event. None of their players on the roster are allowed to join any other teams during the tournament. Using any of these players as ringers will result with the disqualification of the team using them.

Bans: A player banned is no more able to play any of the tournament’s games. Dodging the player's suspension by fake/multi-accounting will result in the disqualification of the team. Banned players' IPs will be watched by the admins.

Prize money: The winner of the Storm the Front Online Tournament will get the announced price money. All inner-european transfers will be handled by bank transfer. Transfers to players & teams living outside of Europe will be handled by PayPal if the regarding teams do not have a valid Bank account.   

Hardware Prizes: Hardware prizes will be shipped to a responsible person for the regarding team (e.g. the teammanagers or teamleaders) who has to take care to deliver the prizes to their teams' members.   


We wish all the teams good luck and having lots of fun playing!