Esports has come a long way since its initial burst of popularity. We have seen numerous success stories, where players have exceeded expectations and achieved incredible victories. However, as in any real sport, some players considered themselves smarter than the others and cheated even during serious tournaments. In this article, we will tell you about a few of these seemingly cunning esports players who were caught red-handed and banned for using cheats.
Azubu Frost
When the Azubu Frost team competed against TSM in the second season of the League of Legends World Championship, the event organizers set the audience screen in such a way that it was slightly visible to both teams. While TSM played fairly, the Azubu Frost members looked at the screen and informed their teammates where exactly their opponents were. Eventually, TSM pointed out that their opponents were cheating, and Azubu Frost had to pay a $30 000 fine.
KQLY
This case shocked the entire CS:GO community because it involved one of the brightest French talents nicknamed KQLY. During one of the professional tournaments in 2014, this player received an automatic ban from the VAC system that Valve implemented to track the most known cheats. It means that KQLY not only cheated but also used rather trivial software for this purpose, which was pretty stupid of him.
Forsaken
This player was a member of an Indian CS:GO team that participated in one of the most prestigious tournaments in 2018. Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat believed that no one would notice that he was using the so-called aimbot – software that allows you to hit the enemy even if you shoot past him. However, given the seriousness of the event, it was not surprising that officials found the cheat on the player’s computer. As a result, the entire OpTic team that forsaken played for was disqualified. Moreover, an additional investigation showed that this team also used cheats in one of their previous tournaments.
Phox and w3ak
Since Valorant is one of the fastest-growing esports games, it was just a matter of time before someone was caught cheating. In 2020, two members of the Echo 8 team phox and w3ak decided to use some kind of forbidden software while preparing for the PAX arena event. The tournament organizers noticed this and accused the players of cheating. Even though the esportsmen did not want to admit their guilt initially, they still received a lifetime ban. And when it was all said and done, the investigation also showed that they relied on cheats in other tournaments as well.
