Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: FLASHPOINT
The team-owned CS:GO franchised league FLASHPOINT which was officially announced yesterday has reviewed its rules around ‘Valve Anti-Cheat banned players’ for the Open Qualifiers.
“Any Player with a VAC ban prior to 5 Feb 2018 is allowed to participate in the competition. Any Player with a VAC ban on or after this date is not allowed to participate.”
5th Feb 2018 has been chosen as the reference date because it is exactly 24-months prior to the date of announcement of the league, which is the standard ban duration for cheating at FACEIT.
One of the banned players who will be seen playing in the FLASHPOINT qualifiers is Joshua “steel” Nissan, whose team Chaos Esports Club has been directly invited to the NA closed qualifier.
The British-Canadian player had received a ban from Valve-sponsored events in 2014 along with six other people, after being caught in a North American match-fixing scandal.
Another famous player who might return to the game is Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian, who was handed a VAC ban in 2014.
It is still unclear if the participation of a player with a VAC ban before the specified date includes any and all kinds of cheaters/accused cheaters, be it for account sharing, match-fixing, or using a third-party software to assist them in-game. Hopefully, more information on this will be available soon.
