- Here are six controversies that rocked competitive CS:GO hard in 2020.
- 2020 literally witnessed everything: players and coaches getting banned, match-fixing, stream-sniping, and more.
- Which one out of the six controversies mentioned below do you think had the most impact on CS:GO?
2020 has been a rough year for competitive CS:GO as multiple scandals and exploits surfaced one after the other, leading to many players and coaches getting banned from the circuit. This combined with the fact that almost all the major CS:GO tournaments had to be shifted online due to the ongoing pandemic really had a huge impact on the esports side of things.
As the year comes to an end and the competitive schedule for 2021 are being planned, which might see the return of CS:GO to LAN. Let’s take a quick look at some of the worst controversies that struck Counter-Strike’s competitive circuit this year.
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Six Controversies That Hit CS:GO Hard - 2020
6. MIBR - Chaos EC: False Cheating Accusation
MIBR did not have a great 2020 except for the last few tournaments where they played with their new lineup. The legendary esports organization hit its lowest point when a few players from their former CS:GO roster, mainly Gabriel “FalleN“ Toledo along with popular Brazilian streamer Alexandre "Gaules" Borba slammed Chaos EC players for cheating without any substantial proof to back their claim.
The incident occurred after MIBR lost to Chaos EC in the upper bracket of cs_summit 6 Online: North America, which was one of the RMR tournaments that took place in 2020. FalleN and Gaules were the most prominent figures who publicly spoke about this, accusing Chaos EC players of using illegal programs.
Several clips quickly surfaced online with Nathan “leaf” Orf and Erick “Xeppaa” Bach being the two most affected players by these false accusations, receiving death threats and more. Beyond The Summit after investigating the matter later confirmed that Chaos EC was clean.
RELATED: CS:GO Teams MIBR And Chaos EC Exchange Bitter Blows on Twitter
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
5. MIBR - FURIA: Round-Reset Controversy
It seems MIBR gained more notoriety this year than first-place finishes in tournaments. The infamous ‘round-reset controversy’ took place between two top Brazilian teams, MIBR and FURIA in the month of June.
While playing against each other at BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 American Finals, during the first game MIBR had undergone a technical problem in the 25th round as the whole team had frozen for about 10 seconds. But before the pause could be called Fernando “fer” Alvarenga ended up getting fragged by FURIA and what followed was an all-out war on Twitter.
FURIA had a man advantage in the round and as per the rules, once ‘damage’ is taken in the round and if any ‘issue’ occurs then the round will still proceed to continue and will also be counted if the ‘outcome’ can still be determined.
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
4. CSPPA - Flashpoint Controversy
Despite being a rough year for competitive Counter-Strike, we witnessed the rise of a new organization owned league called Flashpoint. They wanted to do everything right and decided to work with CSPPA (Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association) however things took a turn for the worse as instead of being a step forward this resulted in heavy losses for Flashpoint.
Following allegations were made by Flashpoint against CSPPA
- Loss in sponsorship revenue for both the league and the players because CSPPA failed to respond to several important requests made by them.
- CSPPA refused to partake in any reasonable discussions regarding the rules for the tournament, especially the ones related to fining procedures.
- Members of CSPPA were involved in a conflict of interest as members of CSPPA’s core leadership were called out for acting as player agents in the FunPlus-Heroic deal.
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
3. MDL Match-Fixing Investigation
In September ESIC had issued an update on the MDL (Mountain Dew League) match-fixing investigation which had been going on since the past 18-months at that point of time. In the report, ESIC had stated that they were investigating 15 potential cases at the time which they considered “to be of significant concern to the industry.”
This was followed by ESIC actually handing out a 12-month ban to seven Australian MDL players for betting-related offences. They even collaborated with the Australian law enforcement agencies on this case which goes on to show what a solid job has been done by ESIC, but due to the high volume of data, the progress is slow.
The investigation is still an ongoing process currently and ESIC has not issued a set date till now as to when it will be completed.
RELATED: Richard Lewis Talks About Match Fixing in Competitive CS:GO
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
2. Stream-Sniping Incident
With the CS:GO competitive scene shifting online all of a sudden, it took some time for tournament organizers to implement a few changes to ensure the competitive integrity of a tournament. But before these changes could come into effect, there was quite a bit of gap during which stream-sniping became quite a common occurrence according to ESIC.
They claimed to have evidence of both players and coaches being involved in this form of cheating and finally decided to take a firm step against this illegal practice. They reiterated their stance against stream-sniping and rolled out a zero-tolerance policy, a set of guidelines were also formed and passed on to all partnered tournament organizers to mitigate this ongoing threat to competitive integrity.
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
1. Spectator Bug Exploit - The Biggest Cheating Scandal Of 2020
The ‘Spectator Bug Exploit’ was initially exposed by Michal Slowinski and Steve Dudenhoeffer as they conducted a small investigation with ESL through which they found out that 3 CS:GO coaches had abused this bug to cheat in tournaments. This was followed by ESIC conducting a more thorough investigation which is still an active and ongoing case and so far 37 CS:GO coaches have been handed bans as part of this investigation.
The bug basically allows a spectator to observe a 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. Multiple CS:GO coaches abused 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, advising their team accordingly and giving them a significant competitive advantage.
While Valve has fixed some previous iterations of the spectator bug, Slowinski has stated that some newer variants still existed. It is unknown at this point if Valve has fixed all of them or are there still some ways to use this exploit.
RELATED: New Version of CS:GO Coach Bug Reported by Multiple Users
Note: For complete information on the topic Click Here.
