Valve Fixes Viral CS:GO Mirage Smoke Bug Used by m0NESY at Antwerp Major
The highly controversial smoke bug has been patched by Valve.
Cover-Credits:
Valve seems to be very active as of late as the developers have rolled out a fix for a highly controversial one-way smoke bug on Mirage within a day's time, winning appreciation from the entire CS:GO community.
The viral smoke exploit was witnessed recently at the PGL Antwerp Major 2022, when a clip which went viral showed Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov using a bugged one-way smoke on Mirage against Imperial Esports.
Instant alarm bells went off across the entire CS:GO community with the Brazilian community sharing its disappointment publicly. However, the situation became more complicated when the 17-year-old revealed that the smoke had actually been confirmed as fair use by the tournament organizer (PGL) themselves.
A further statement from PGL read "We will allow the smoke going forward," something that almost all teams competing at the Major disagreed with and chose not to use it going forward as per the announcement by CSPPA (Counter-Strike professional Players' Association).
Valve patches controversial Mirage smoke bug used by m0NESY at Antwerp Major
A newly discovered one-way smoke bug that almost no one was aware of, on a map as old as Mirage is a really scary thought, especially when used in is a CS:GO Major tournament. Well, this is what the Russian prodigy m0NESY had in store for all the teams that were about to face G2 Esports at the Antwerp Major.
G2 had a close run with NAVI on Mirage in their opening bout, the match went into overtime before the Ukrainian organization was able to claim victory with a '19-17' scoreline. This was followed by G2 facing Imperial, once again on Mirage, but this time they walked away victorious with a '16-12' scoreline.
During the third round of the match, m0NESY had managed to pick two kills through a smoked 'Window' taking down both Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo and Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo.
A curious Brazilian CS:GO player João "pigo" Delfino later found out that this was possible only because m0NESY had exploited a certain one-way smoke bug, giving him a huge upper hand against Imperial on 'Top Mid'.
As the clip went viral, m0NESY revealed that PGL had given him permission to use that particular one-way smoke, something he had used in the European RMR (Regional Major Rankings) qualifiers as well, against Anonymo, but it did not have the same effect because the Polish side had not thrown a window smoke.
Note: The m0NESY one-way smoke attempt on Mirage starts at 05:32.
In fact, the smoke bug had been used in the match against NAVI also but did not result in the same degree of success.
The revelation of such a one-way smoke existing and being exploited that too in a Major was met with stiff resistance from players, talents, and other community members. PGL was criticised as well for its poor decision-making when it allowed the use of this smoke after it had become public knowledge.
However, all the 16 Legends Stage teams made an informal agreement to not use this smoke exploit going ahead, with CSPPA making the statement on behalf of all the teams.
Since then, information about many other such one-way smokes has surfaced with one particular user stating "you can do this anywhere you can get a smoke above you at the edge of another smoke," as he shared the following clip of recreating a one-way on the 'A-Site' of Overpass.
For now, Valve has managed to solve the Mirage one-way smoke bug with the single sentence patch notes stating "Fixed a recently reported smoke bug".
While this super quick fix might have solved the problem for now, Valve might have to dig a bit deeper to fix this interaction between the two smokes, before another such exploit creeps up.
