I can't really say this is a surprise to hear. It sucks - especially for the players involved - but with the strict qualification rules for the previous round in the Arena Tournament, it's not hard to believe something like this happened.
For those of you not aware, Amped eSports has an article covering this in full detail, including a chat with some of the disqualified players.
Now on to the explanation of what caused this: five of the eight teams that qualified for the Regional Finals are affected by this rule, that essentially came out of nowhere.
You see, when Blizzard contacted the players from each of the teams to book their travel to the event in San Diego from June 2nd to the 3rd, they compared the names taken to the names on the accounts of those players.
And this is where the problem is. Some of the players on these teams don't have their name on the account, thus disqualifying them from the next round of the tournament, either killing off their team entirely or crippling it horribly.
Pandemic(Power Trip from Tichondrius-Bloodlust) is one of the teams crippled by this new rule; both of their priests, Jared "Vhell" Coulston and Nathan "Kintt" Quinn have been disqualified due to their name not matching that which is on the account.
It's rather unfortunate that something like this has occured; there are many, many reasons a person could have someone else's name on their account - everything ranging from a different credit card being used, to the account being created under their parents' name because of age issues, at the time of account creation.
So what do these teams do from here? Well, Pandemic and Team Eminence - another team affected by this - are going to give it a go at the Regionals, albeit lacking key players; especially in Pandemic's case.
Three teams - Clan HeX, Overrated, and Check Six - cannot continue due to the players disqualified.
It's hard to say what this means for the future of this "official" Arena Tournament, but the impression of most competing players now is a resounding "It's quite disappointing that Blizzard's first WoW tournament has turned into such a joke."
