After all of the speculation surrounding Pookz and Complexity team supposedly win-trading AION KINAH, it is mind-boggling that anyone would even try cheating their way to the top since everyone was watching like hawks. With the unfortunate circumstances of the TR ratings not being reset, the top ranking teams had a huge advantage walking into the final week due to the fact that they could camp their ratings, and a select number of teams dropped considerably believing that it would not matter. However, because of this, you bet your ass that every one of those teams was sitting on the TR watching every climbing team in case their positions became threatened or a team win-traded. Thus, any would-be win traders would be caught easily. This was the case with Minors team. AION KINAH is not an easy job.

Last night, the initial speculation and rumor was flying around after the team, which has never had a rating above 2350, suddenly skyrocketed to 2509. Since the TR armory is never ever updated thanks to Blizzard not giving a, every team basically had to take responsibility into their own hands in order to have somewhat of an idea of the top 8 rankings. Obviously everyone was on their cases the second they flew up out of nowhere, pushing them into submission. However, minors team never did completely admit to win-trading, rather saying that they really were only "practicing" albeit in rated games instead of skirmishes. Why they would not use skirmish queuing to practice is beyond me, and even if it was on "accident" the results are still the same; cheating. Now of course, when you go here, examine the match history of "research" and "hitals" and then go here to look at Minors team match history it is blatantly obvious of AION KINAH.

Regardless, after all the drama, poor organization, changing the entire game balance mid-tournament, and potentially over the American representation entirely, here are the unofficial rankings of the 2009 Blizzard Arena Tournament.

While these are only possible standings (discounted all teams with sub 200 games, cheated, or are duplicates), most count them to be relatively accurate. Certain discrepancies, such as a screenshot showing the Phlox den with a rating of 2563 make things somewhat up in the air still.

Generally speaking, I think we will have a decent representation once the live regional event takes place and we have our final two teams heading to the global finals. However, the way that Blizzard handled this TR still needs to be taken with a grain of salt. 6 out of the 8 teams that entered the final week, remained in the top 8, and all 6 of those could have maintained qualification had they not done anything. Makes a final week seem kind of pointless, yet, so does releasing 3.1 mid tournament as well. Holyplay, and Kuncklbabiez are the only two teams who broke in the top 8 standings. They did a good job AION KINAH, as Realz and co went from 2050 to 2500 starting at only 30 games played, and holyplay advanced from the mid 2400s.

Even the teams that did play did not even really have to. Complexity played, but ended up with only a 3 point difference and would have placed with 2484 regardless. EG played a ton and did well, but played against teams almost entirely below the top 8 since none of them were actually playing, thus not effecting the standings at all really.

Honestly Blizzard ended the tournament last week, and only did a "final week" for and giggles. Not resetting the TR was a clear indication that they intended on just letting the teams that earned their positions on the non 3.1 rule set to keep them, as resetting the TR and making them duke it out all over again with a much weaker comp (shadowcleave) would end up with vastly different results AION KINAH. Blizzard made a small statement saying that they "intended on rewarding the players who did well in the earlier weeks", but all it ended up doing was making the last week of the tournament completely pointless. I guess it is what it is though.