During a official Mortal Kombat 11 Pro competition on January 16, finalist Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified after jokingly expressing developer NetherRealm Studios by labeling his Sheeva variation – a personalized movement set that displays a personal name for opponents – as ‘WhyDidNRSdoThis.’
The disqualification caused an awkward moment on the stream. When the official broadcast Commentators Housam “Mitsuownes” Cherif and Miguel “Darth Arma” Perez cut away from the top-eight match after just a few minutes.
“Unfortunately, it looks like we have a small problem here, and someone is … we have a situation,” Perez told viewers as he and his partner listened to producers in their headphones. “I do not know what we can say in public, but we certainly have a situation here.”
Shortly afterwards, Perez said that Titaniumtigerzz’s opponent would progress, despite the match not being officially decided. No reason was given, but Perez reminded everyone to ‘follow the rules … everyone should be respectful’, which suggests that this is why Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified without coming out and saying it. NetherRealm Studios and parent company WB Games did not respond to a request for comment. Kotaku‘s requests for comment.
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The variation name, Titaniumtigerzz told Kotaku, was supposed to be a very soft critique of Sheeva’s strengths.
“It was meant to be funny, since the character I use is basically extremely easy,” Titaniumtigerzz explained to me via DM. The joke was, ‘Why would they make such an easy character? ‘”
Sheeva was a major topic in competition Mortal Kombat 11 lately due to her Dragon Drop bump attack. Titaniumtigerzz says that the move, which cannot be blocked, can be used in virtually any situation to put Sheeva in a more favorable position. It has become such a problem that top players have devoted entire videos to explaining how you can knock out this one attack.
Titaniumtigerzz and his opponent were not immediately told of the disqualification and continued playing their downstream for a few minutes. After being notified, he was apparently left in the dark as to why he was disqualified and was not given the chance to rectify or challenge the situation. Titaniumtigerzz says a moderator has since told him the decision has to do with his name.
“They banned me in the first game where I used the name,” Titaniumtigerzz said. ‘No opportunity [to change the name] was given and no one reached out to me. I would have changed it immediately if I had the option. ”
While the official Pro Competition rules do not specifically mention these types of protests; the code of conduct section does give organizers the discretion to disqualify players for any reason.
Since the disqualification is the hashtag #WhyDidNRSDoThis spread by the Mortal Kombat community on Twitter, and Titaniumtigerzz tells Kotaku He received a lot of support from teammates who did not agree with the decision. He also said problems with Mortal Kombat 11 and last week’s disqualification will not stop him from playing in future tournaments.
“This is the pro competition and I’m a competitive player,” Titaniumtigerzz explained. “I may hate how they do things, but at the end of the day it’s their game and I have no other options.”