CS:GO VAC Ban Rules Updated Regarding Valve-Sponsored Events

Valve has rolled out a huge update to their RMR (Regional Major Rankings) eligibility guidelines, by making certain changes to how a VAC ban affects a player’s competitive career. As per the updated VAC ban rules, from today onwards CS:GO players will be allowed to compete in Valve-sponsored events once again if at least 5 years have passed since they were handed the ban. However, those players who have received a VAC ban after having participated in any Valve event, both RMR or Majors, including the qualifiers, will continue to remain ineligible. Despite the above exception, all other effects of a VAC ban will still be applicable to the player.

RELATED:  Valve Allows VAC Banned CS:GO Pro to Compete in Official Events Following Investigation

Valve updates CS:GO VAC ban policy

Valve has finally taken a minute and introduced some changes to its VAC ban policy regarding how they influence a CS:GO player’s eligibility to participate and compete in Valve-sponsored events. The official statement released by Valve is as follows,

“Moving forward, a VAC ban will only disqualify a player from an event if it was either received less than 5 years prior, or if it was received at any time after their first participation in a Valve-sponsored event (e.g., after participating in a qualifier for an RMR event).”

The developers of CS:GO seemed to have realized that a change to their VAC ban rules was long due, as they mentioned that “Up until today, players were ineligible to participate in Valve-sponsored events if they had ever received a VAC ban in CS:GO”. 

Valve reasoned that these guidelines were not changed earlier because “the game was new and all CS:GO VAC bans were relatively recent”. But now that the game was more than 8 years old, along with some of the VAC bans handed out, “We’ve decided to update them (VAC ban rules)”.

However, though Valve has modified their VAC ban policies against participation in Valve-sponsored events, they will continue to “stay in place with all of their other effects”. Also, Valve specified that a player banned from their events due to other reasons (match-fixing, betting) “remain(s) unchanged”.

The announcement comes barely a month before the first RMR 2021 tournaments are set to begin for all the regions. It is also a huge relief for those players that had received a VAC ban from CS:GO during its early days, with the majority of the CS:GO community bringing to light two cases, 

1. Vinicius "⁠vsm⁠" Moreira - whose VAC ban goes back to around 2013, when he was just 13-years-old.
   
   
2. Elias "⁠Jamppi⁠" Olkkonen, who recently retired from competitive CS:GO to pursue a career in Valorant along with Team Liquid. He had a long legal battle with Valve also, but unfortunately, the final verdict did not go in his favour.

RELATED:  VAC Banned Pro Jamppi Reveals Why he Left CS:GO for Valorant