Polaris Parts Ways With Slaze After Riot Games Officially Suspends Her From Valorant Game Changers
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Former Polaris pro Sophia “Slaze'' Ramirez was banned from Valorant Game Changers for three months but Riot Games did not put out an official competitive ruling until recently. The publisher revealed that the player was repeatedly queuing with a cheater. After the news of the ban first broke out, Polaris revealed that it would be replacing Slaze with former Serenity Purple player “Kxtieoh.” Slaze was not released from the roster after the news broke as there was still some confusion about why the player was banned. But after Riot Games released a statement, revealing more information about the suspension, Polaris has let go of Slaze from the team.
An official ruling was posted in the Game Changers Discord which stated that she violated rules and would not be able to compete in official Riot Games events until December 2021. Polaris was given a short window to find a substitute player, during which the team decided to bench Slaze temporarily and appoint Kxtieoh as a replacement.
Slaze has denied the cheating accusations
The player claimed that she did not boost anyone, get boosted or hand over access to her account to anyone else. Slaze claimed that “the anti-cheat has nothing to do with boosting unless they're manually targeting someone. This solely comes down to someone being obsessed with me and because they have connections they can do this to me and anyone else.”
Riot Games releases full competitive ruling
Riot Games revealed that Slaze was actively playing with a cheating player and continued to do so even after receiving the Red Screen, which warns players about queuing with cheaters. The publisher revealed that it is a violation of Rule 7.5 of the VALORANT Global Competition Policy. Slaze is banned from any association or affiliation with a team in a Riot-sanctioned competition for 3 months, beginning from the date of the latest violation to December 20th, 2021.
Throughout September, Slaze received the Red Screen and requeued with cheaters on multiple occasions, with multiple accounts. During the last 28 days alone:
77% of the Competitive MMR gained on Slaze’s accounts came from games played while duo-queued with an actively cheating player.
60% of Slaze’s Competitive matches were played while duo-queued with an actively cheating player.
Polaris officially parts ways with Slaze
After Riot Games released the official tournament ruling on its social media handles, Polaris officially announced that it was parting ways with Slaze. The team stated that the members of Polaris were unaware of the banned player’s actions and the team apologized to fans. The team will continue to compete in the Game Changers event without Slaze.
Following this, the player tweeted, “I’ve never played with someone that’s cheating, I’ve never seen anyone I’ve played with banned for cheating. The guy I’ve played with also isn’t banned and asked me to queue yesterday so that just doesn’t make sense. He’s not banned and I’m not banned, so how am I playing with a cheater?”
Team Liquid’s Lucas "Mendo" Håkansson responded saying “These are cold hard statistics showing the story of exactly what happened, they have access to every single piece of information on your account, I’m dumbfounded that you’re tripling down.”
