You make it sound like every team had issues with the rules, it was two teams that misunderstood them.

We know of two teams that misunderstood them. It was probably more. The max allowed for this to happen is 0.

If i signed a contract before playing in a tournament i would make it MY responsibility to read the rules

Oh look, you're posting irrelevant shit again. I repeat it for the 1000th time now: what CoL or any other participants do is OFF TOPIC to the discussion and IRRELEVANT. The only thing that matters is what ESL does. Nobody gives a shit about a single player/teams destiny. The only thing that matters is whether the rules are good or not. Because we are not evaluating the teams here, we are evaluating ESL. HOW FUCKING LONG WILL IT TAKE YOU TO GRASP THAT?!!!!!

EXACTLY why players should learn to treat tournaments like a job contract. READ WHAT THEY EXPECT OF YOU.

Irrelevant for the same reason.

Sorta like these two teams?

Irrelevant for the same reason.

It's not ESL's problem

Yes, it is ESL's problem because it's them losing the money and prestige.

the rules were easy to access and understand

Not easy enough obviously else they wouldn't have been misunderstood.

On a very clear 1 page document and didn't do anything unreasonable.

You're whiteknighting a lot now. There are multiple errors inside the rules that make them invalid if you're strict, but the way more important thing is that they print out 100s of these rule sheets for every tournament and then somewhere between the lines they change one small detail for this one tournament that fucks everyone over. It was to be expected that not everyone would pay attention to every little detail, and exactly that happened. Next time if you want people to understand sudden changes in your rules, highlight them. Also it is very clear that the only purpose of the rule is increased profit for the tournament organizer (by increasing efficiency), so people should actually be forced to look sceptical on the rules and the organizer should be extra careful.

The problem LIES SOLELY with players

This is complete bullshit.

having a tendency to NOT READ RULES.

1. Just because you read it doesn't mean you understand it. 2. Rule-Creator has the duty to create the rules properly and make sure that everyone has understood it - NOT the teams. 3. Everyone knows that teams do not read every small detail about thousands of rules that take them multiple hours to read per day. And if they hire lawyers to check those rules first (afaik in real sports people do this) then ESL's rules would be horribly bad and no team would be able to participate in their tournaments.