however the rules, from what I read, state to restart the game after every match, and report bugsplat screens, neither of which were done when DevM was giving his opinion
Sorry to hear that you are uneasy with the situation, Von. Reading the chatlog, I can totally understand why. First these very unlucky RNG bombs, situation is getting worse by the minute, so "Karma" gave DevM that bugsplat. Yay! I guess you assumed that this would grant you a win, like many tournament rules do. Hooligan then reinforces this view (because he uses the "bug-splat after x minutes: Loss!" rule in his tourneys).
Problem is, the rules of GCS do not state that. They basically say players should decide, if they can't agree a ref will decide. They don't require you to make a screenshot either (which in this case would be pointless anyways, or is anybody disputing DevM really had a bugsplat?). And the restart thing is actually more of a recommendation (the rule starts with "Please"). Even so, DevM might have restarted the game before this match, we don't know...
I x-checked a little, and this isn't even uncommon. The tourneys by Duke Jason basically have the same rule as GCS, TPI doesn't even have rules for that.
Now, the rules are a bit unspecific because they don't say exactly on what basis the refs should make the decision, or what possible rulings include ("Rematch, but this time the players need to wear funny hats!").
In comes A_E and basically overthrows what you expect to get and what Hooligan said (because A_E actually knows the rules), and comes across a bit rude. I totally get why you feel like you have been cheated there and that you are miffed after that. I would be!
While the rules are vague, it's obvious that the "bugsplat=autoloss" does not apply (otherwise the rules would say so), and one can guess that the intention is that the winner should be decided based on the current situation (ah, recipe for desaster). And even while you have a slim chance of winning, it would be fairly clear that 90% of people would have put their money on DevM at that point.
So, following the supposed intention of the rules it would be 3:1 for DevM, series over.
Now, A_E decides against that and grants you the win, but he feels justifiably that this is an unfavourable deal for DevM so he gives him map and faction selection. Again, the rules do not state what a ref can decide, so that's totally fine with the rules, but apparently the
intention was that it should be either a win/loss or rematch. This is why A_E then said that this is extra to the rules (which I don't think is the case, it is probably extra to the intention of the rules).
Now, you can say: Well, faction & map choice is an autowin anyways, so, duh? But then DevM picks FA and same factions.
What other options would we have according to the "intention of the rules":
- Win for DevM (3:1 for him, end of series; given that you were seriously on the backfoot, this is probably the outcome the rules intended).
- Rematch on FA, same factions at 2:1 for DevM
- Win for Von (2:2 for him, proceed to game 5)
Ok, you didn't get the win awarded, and yes, according to rules of other tourneys this indeed would have been the outcome. But given the rules of this tourney, this seems like the unlikely outcome.
So, given DevMs choice of map and faction, you basically got a rematch, but at 2:2 (so better than the second option and way better than the first option). Or, effectively, the result would have been the same if you started the whole series with a 1:0 lead.
So, yeah, reading through the chatlog you didn't get a lot of empathy from the others and things could have been handled better, but A_E acted under the impression that he was actual kind of bending the rules in your favor...