Cover-Credits:
- ESL conducts investigation to find coaches who have abused the recently discovered spectator bug.
- HUNDEN, Dead, and MechanoGun are the ones who have been identified by ESL to have misused the bug.
- All of them have been banned for different duration's from all upcoming DreamHack and ESL tournaments.
ESL just finished conducting an investigation led by CS:GO Referee Michal Slowinski in order to find if the coach of any of the CS:GO teams had used a recently discovered spectating bug to gain an unfair advantage in a game. After closely analysing all matches from the DreamHack and ESL events which took place in the last few months, ESL has identified Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen, Ricardo "dead" Sinigaglia, and Aleksandr "MechanoGun" Bogatiryev, as coaches who have knowingly misused the bug to gain an unfair advantage.
CS:GO Spectator Bug
The bug which ESL was just made aware of recently allows a spectator to observe the live game from anywhere on the map simply by executing a combination of a few simple steps, without anyone on the server knowing about it.
This means that the coach of a particular team could use this bug to spectate parts of the map like oppositions spawn point or other parts of the map that would otherwise be hidden to his team, and then advice his team accordingly giving them a significant competitive advantage.
The bug was however patched before the recently concluded ESL One Cologne 2020, but all the coaches which that been identified to have used this bug are in violation of ESL’s rulebook section “6.10.5 Use of Bugs and Glitches.”
HUNDEN, dead, MechanoGun Handed Bans For Using Spectating Bug
Following their investigation, ESL has handed the above-mentioned coaches the following ban sentence after consulting with Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) who will also be publishing their own separate statement on the matter in due course,
- MechanoGun who is the coach of Hard Legion was caught using the bug at ESL One Road to Rio on 6 maps across 3 matches. He has received a 24-month ban from playing or coaching in competitions.
- HUNDEN who is the coach of Heroic was caught using the bug at DreamHack Masters Spring in 10 rounds on 1 map. He has received a 12-month ban from playing or coaching in competitions.
- Dead who is the coach of MIBR was caught using the bug at ESL One Road to Rio in 1 round on 1 map. He has received a 6-month ban from playing or coaching in competitions.
Apart from this, the teams have been disqualified from the respective tournaments, forfeiting their ESL Pro Tour points and the prize money. It is unclear if the RMR points were deducted as well or not, as they were not mentioned by ESL.
Whatever further decision ESIC takes will be following the ESIC Player Code of Conduct and will further apply on top of ESL’s sanctions which apply on to DreamHack and ESL tournaments.
ESL clarified that “Multiple coaches other than those mentioned in this post have encountered the bug. They did not abuse it in any way.” This is indeed quite a blow to the teams involved, especially MIBR whose players had blatantly accused Chaos Esports Club of using cheats against them a few months back at cs_summit 6 and now their own coach has been convicted of a similar act.
It must be a big disappointment for Heroic as well who had just won the ESL One Cologne 2020 yesterday, in one of the most outstanding underdogs run in recent times. HUNDEN was credited with a big part of their success. Let’s see how the affected teams cope up with this setback going forward.
