> Personally, I think that all of this concern for "sniping" isn't really fair.
> ...
> Now duplicate accounts are another problem entirely, and if they are using said "sniping" strategy to make it easier for their "multi" then by all means take that option out of their hands.

They are definitely two different problems. Probably this discussion has blurred the two issues together, although they remain separate in my mind. Here's how I see them:

1. Duplicate accounts are bad, and sniping with a duplicate account is particularly underhanded.

2. Playing with a single account with a sniping strategy is perfectly legitimate. However, I believe it would be desirable if sniping were either not possible or more obviously a losing strategy. It's not that attempting a snipe isn't a perfectly fair and legitimate way to play the game. It's that the game would be stronger, I believe, if it were not available.

It's a game design issue. A well-balanced strategy game shouldn't have luck as such a powerful factor in players' success or failure. Strategy games should turn on strategy, with luck only as much a factor as it takes to keep things interesting.

Currently, the outcome of the entire tournament can quite easily turn based on who happens to get matched up with a sniper vs. who happens to get matched up with an absent player in the qualifying rounds.

If it were even so much as a matter of seed order -- for example, if those who did poorest in the preliminary rounds would be more likely to get paired up with a sniper -- then I wouldn't have much of a problem with it. But that's just not true. There is currently no way to know which inactive accounts will snipe you and which won't. And if you DID know, you could not possibly defend adequately against it, because even if you win the match, you will be unrecoverably weakened by the battle.

Again, I see sniping as fair play. It's the game itself I see as having the undesirable quality of allowing sniping to be random and inescapable for the victims of sniping. My only question is, how do I balance the game in such a way as to correct it in a way that's fair and still allows players as much freedom as possible in how they choose to play.