I have no words to convey the sorrow, disappointment and shame I feel in this moment. To have a moment of triumph and pride turned into shock and anger. To know that people I brought into this fold, who I taught this game to, betrayed themselves and their values. My values.

To any and everyone that hasn’t heard of the events that occurred over the past few days, there’s what I consider to be irrevocable evidence that two of my players, Omar Soubra and Jose Norono were cheating at the Wish event this past weekend of March 10th. The surrounding details are relevant and indicative of failures on the part of myself, the two of them, and the company, and I apologize to anyone who was wronged by their actions, regardless of whether or not they have it within them to do it themselves.

In the wake of the news, I spent many hours reviewing footage and attempting to glean some idea of what may have happened. Not only this, but also to refute said evidence, because the last thing I wanted to believe was that these players so close to me could have done something so foul and unsporting. I unfortunately do not have unlimited time to watch every shred of content out there, but what I saw was shocking— in just one match, I watched a player remove his hands from the sight of the camera fifty-four times. In one match. 3 of those times, to my accounting, a new card could have been introduced to gameplay, in full view of a stream judge. Out of curiosity, I watched clips and blurbs from other games that day, and from other events. The problem is endemic. In each stream, I found examples of players removing their hands from view and creating board states that could have been called into question. There is no excuse for what Jose and Omar did, but the environment cultivated by UVS Games at these events because of their lack of proper education for judges and stream teams is what led to abundant opportunity for these players, and, I assume, others. I am disappointed with my players, but similarly I am disappointed with UVS Games’s approach to this situation and for their blaise, unprofessional approach to the game environment that gives opportunity to bad actors in our game. For any of you brave souls who have volunteered to judge, this is not directed at you. I know you are doing the best you can with the limited ammunition you have, and I hope that in the future you are given the support you require to create a safe gamestate played without any doubt in the integrity or honor of the players. I hope that UVS’s biggest takeaway from this is that simply hoping people will do the right thing is not enough, as badly as I, the little Catholic Paraguayan from Miami would love that to be so.

To the community at large, I am sorry. In the pursuit of something great, I failed you, and my players’ pursuit of this led them down a dark path. By their actions, my own are tarnished, and I understand if your trust in me has faltered. I will and always will do my best to do right by my family, my friends, and myself. I consider each of you my friends, and words cannot express how much sorrow I feel for failing you and my players. I cultivated this team, and this environment and my expectation for success for myself and how hard I am on myself for losing is likely what instilled this toxic pressure that made these guys resort to cheating, and I will be looking inward to find how to do better— not just for the players I cultivate, but also for myself.

To Jose, all I have to say is that I love you dearly. I accept you. I care for you. Nothing will ever change that. I am deeply stricken with disappointment and my heart is broken at this moment, but you should never doubt my belief in you and your dreams. I love you forever and I like you for always, and I will keep coming back to you because I know that in your heart of hearts, you are just the man I know you to be. Wonderful, clever, kind, precocious, intelligent beyond measure and the best person I know.

To Omar, I would have you know that the world is not ending. The sun will come up. Tomorrow may not be any better than today, but it won’t be today ever again. You are young, and every one of us has done things we were not proud of in our lives. How we act in life defines us, but this one thing will not define yours. It’s up to you to show us all that although you did something terrible in a moment of weakness, you can do better. I believe in you and I hope you will.

I know both of you are better than this, and I know you can and will do what’s right and own up to your mistakes and grow from this. I expect it of you, and my sincerest hope is that both of you will allow yourselves to move on to a brighter future.

To UVS Games, I need to be frank and convey my anger and disappointment for the apparent fair weather approach to your relationship with me and the community at large. As horrible a situation as you were handed, the fact that you took the path of least resistance and Pontius Pilate’d the situation is shocking to me. If any of the goodwill I hope I’ve cultivated in my years of supporting the game mean anything, I hope you take me seriously when I say that the blaise environment you created is what allowed this behavior to fester, and while you are not responsible for Omar and Jose’s actions, I do think that this should be a wake up call showing you that our Judge Program needs to have more resources put into it and the setup of the game itself needs to be improved to the point that board states are not so confusing and easy to angle shoot/cheat from. If you watch any given stream from any given event, I think you will be given evidence against pretty much everyone who has ever been on stream because of how lax rule enforcement has become. I have been a huge proponent for our judges to receive proper resources for a VERY long time, and I will continue to be. Just as I expect better from my players and friends, I expect better from the company in the future.

To Paul, thank you for your patience, honesty, and willingness to talk this out with me even while I was hurt, vitriolic, and angry, and especially for accepting me as I am even at a very low point in my life.

I will be taking the next few days and weeks to reflect on and evaluate how I want to approach Unfunstuff’s role in the community in the future. As of this moment you can consider the team at the very least “on hiatus’ as I consider what the best course of action is. I hope that anyone reading this will not take the actions of Jose and Omar and let it reflect poorly on the other players on the team, as I think they are all incredible guys who want the best for the game and the community. Each of them joined because they believe in what I believe in— that this game is amazing, playing it is awesome, and we want to elevate competitive play to new heights. I don’t know if I’ll be able to play after this, but I want everyone to know that just as much as I dislike what the pressure can do to a person, I love this game, I love the competitive fire it lit in me and I love seeing your faces at events. Bless each of you and bless your hearts if you’ve read this far. I’ll see you on the other side.