WePlay! Ignition Series VALORANT Tournament Delayed by Riot Games Amid Cheating Suspicions

Aditya Singh Rawat
Published On: 15 Jul 2020, 05:18 PM

WePlay! VALORANT Invitational has been delayed by Riot Games due to cheating suspicions.
G2 Esports match against nolpenki has been affected due to this delay.
Open Qualifier #2 which came to an end earlier today is reportedly being investigated.

The currently ongoing WePlay! VALORANT Invitational which is officially a part of the VALORANT Ignition Series has reportedly delayed a few matches by a couple of hours due to suspicion of cheating. This is currently being investigated by Riot Games, its Vanguard team, and one of its Ignition Series organizers.

[Also Read: Chaos EC Suspected of Cheating Against MIBR at cs_summit 6]

Suspicion Of Cheating At WePlay! VALORANT Invitational

According to a Tweet by Liquipedia VALORANT the cheating suspicion is currently under investigation due to which a few matches have been delayed by a couple of hours. Though no team or player has been officially or allegedly been named in connection with this incident, multiple users have noticed that a Lithuanian team called ‘nolpenki’ has been removed from the participants list on WePlay’s official website.

'nolpenki' missing from the list of participating teamsThis in no way means that 'nolpenki' are being accused of cheating. In fact at the moment we do not even know if the team is being investigated or not. It is just something that multiple users including Liquipedia VALORANT themselves have noticed.

Just an observation that a lot of users have pointed out toA VALORANT team manager who goes by the name of Leon 'Aricune' Neziri has been tweeting about the incident, keeping everyone updated on the matter. According to him, G2 Esports seems to be one of the teams affected by this delay as “Vanguard’s (VALORANT anti-cheat) team is currently on it, double-checking everything before, after, and during an ‘Ignition Series’ tournament.”

He even shared a Tweet made by the Lithuanian team ‘nolpenki’ that has now been deleted. In the Tweet, the Lithuanian team has stated that their match against G2 Esports has been delayed “Due to a suspicion of one of the teams cheating in yesterday’s open qualifier #2.”

Tweet made by 'nolpenki' on the situationThe above screenshot (now deleted) was later replaced by the following Tweet instead,

At the moment no official statement has been released from Riot Games, VALORANT, WePlay!, or any of the other parties involved.

[Also Read: Valorant Anti-Cheat Lead Talks About Hardware Bans, Detection and AI Approach]

Around 13 hours before the start of WePlay! VALORANT Invitational ‘nolpenki’ had managed to win the second open qualifier, making their way into the main event where they were scheduled to go up against G2 Esports.

Though no direct accusations are being made against any team as the matter is still under investigation, users did point out the team’s missing name from the participant’s list on the official website, raising a few eyebrows.

A tweet by ‘nolpenki’ has suggested that the incident is revolving around the second open qualifier, as teams from both Vanguard and Riot Games are handling the situation. VALORANT has already made its stance against cheaters very clear from the very beginning and it does not look like they are handling this case any leniently.

Aditya Singh Rawat

Aditya is the in-house CS:GO writer at AFK Gaming. While his understanding of the esports space is not restricted by geographical borders, his current focus lies in the Asian region. Understands and follows almost all major esport titles.

Controversy Cheating WePlay Riot Games VALORANT