What are Vanta's forfeiture policies?

Competitive integrity is one of our top priorities at Vanta. Every point matters and every team is invited to meet the season's challenges. Facilitating free leagues that give every team an equal opportunity of success brings it's load of challenges - one of these challenges is assessing competitor commitment. We do not charge any entree fees or require any contracts to sign up for our leagues; it's free to try out and we do not force any obligation clauses or exclusivity policies on any of our players. This is how we like esports - equal competition for everyone and anyone. However, this level of accessibility requires a level of accountability - specifically, in the area of forfeitures.

What is a forfeiture?

A forfeiture can be categorized in two different ways: the surrendering of a match and the non-attendance of a match. In both cases, the forfeiting team will not be awarded any points for the match and will be counted with a loss in their season standings.

Surrendering

A team can intentionally surrender at any time to be scored with an automatic loss and forgo any awarded points for the match. This can be submitted directly on the match scoreboard through the Vanta platform.

In cases where a team cannot compete with the minimum team size of a given game, as indicated in our general ruleset, a surrender may be called for if the opposing team does not agree to play a man down.

Non-Attendance

In the case that a team simply cannot make it to a given match day, and a reschedule is not possible, a team can submit a forfeit as mentioned above - directly through their match day scoreboard. In addition, if a team does not submit a score after 72 hours of their scheduled gameday, a forfeit will automatically be submitted for that team.

If both teams agree, a match may be postponed to a later date in order to avoid a non-attendance forfeiture - however, rescheduling is a privilege, not a right, and an opponent is not required to reschedule if they are ready to play on time.

In both of these cases, any attempt to goad another team into submitting a forfeit is in no way acceptable and falls under the category of unsportsmanlike conduct.

How many forfeits are allowed?

Teams are allowed a total of two forfeits per season - on their third forfeit, they will be removed from our competition scheduling. This is not a permanent removal - if a team would like to be placed back into our scheduling and agrees to continue without further forfeits, they can request re-entry by emailing support@vanta.gg.

It is also advisable to reach out to our support team ahead of time if you'd like to opt out of participation for any given week - we can remove you from the scheduling and possibly assign your teams a bye. Keep in mind that our forfeiture policy also applies to preseason games - though standings are not counted in the preseason, we expect schools that create teams to show up for their matches. If you would like to be removed from scheduling for preseason games, please reach out to support@vanta.gg at least 24 hours before your preseason games.

If a forfeiture is submitted by accident, reach out to us as soon as possible to prevent the invalidation of your team's scores.