I expressed my distaste for the tournament settings before it started, and they proved to be flawed. Changes were made after the first round was played with the flawed settings. Not only is this completely unfair to anyone that played in those matches, it is un-professional. I can't think of any competition in the world that would make such a change, and not replay any match that was completed with the bad settings. Then again, Gamespot lets players advance due to absences as well, which is a horrible policy and unfair to every player involved.

Most game genres allows for very lenient settings in competitive play, having a clear cut definition of what should be allowed and not. Trying to create tournament settings in an RTS game that deviate dramatically from ranked play is inviting imbalance, not to mention foolish. Gamespot either does not care, or lacks experienced RTS gamers to set up their RTS tournaments. So far fairness has not been a concern, nor has balance; the only important factor is having a live broadcast for the final match.

I have hope for the impending third RTS tournament, not much hope, but some. If Gamespot cannot get the proper people setting these things up, they need to just give up on RTS tournaments. The only reason they have not been called on it yet is because this is only the second RTS tournament, and that there are not many veteran RTS gamers actively involved in the Gamespot community. If these trends continue, there will be people more vocal, and less formal than I, demanding answers for the shoddy planning and execution we saw in the BFMEII and now CoH tournaments.