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Guild Esports suffered a huge blow after Riot Games disqualified them from the Valorant First Strike European Qualifier. Riot Games released a statement to support their course of action, which indicated that Guild Esports used a bug to their favor to exploit their match against G2 Esports on November 13. Riot Games reiterated that Guild Sports players and management acted knowingly, in contravention to Rule 7.2.6 of the Global Competition Policy. Consequently, the fate of a forfeit loss was handed to them.
Rule 7.2.6 of the Global Competition Policy allows Riot Games to determine whether a team or player used an exploit in a match. The rule continues to stipulate that the only exploit prohibited is “intentional”. Well, Guild Esports just confirmed that it was within their knowledge to use the tricks. However, Riot Games echoed that players must consult with match referees to determine exploitative moves.
Guild Esports Isn’t Happy With the Turn of Events
After receiving the news, Guild Esports responded in a protestation to the decision by Riot Games, citing that their win was fair as they only leveraged innovative ways to ace the tournament. However, Guild Esports went ahead and requested Riot Games to classify the incident as an unintended exploit, pursuant to current policies. Guild Esports also wants the incident to be removed from the game to ensure fairness. The management said they were devastated by the turn of events and looked forward to another match with G2 Sports.
It is important to note that it isn’t the first time Riot Games is taking stern action against players and teams that violate gaming policies.
What Is the Exploit in Question?
Surprisingly, Guild Esports team members did not sneak in cheating software or abandoned their games before the end. Riot games note that the exploit in question involved creating an unfair advantage by leveraging boosting skills to propel a player to a higher vantage point using agents skills. Therefore, different agents can execute this “exploit” differently. In Guild Esports’ scenario, Killjoy increases the Sage ice wall, which allows her to climb to the peak of the ice and peek through the window. This incident happened on the Ascenet map.
It is crucial to note that reaching the window in normal ways is considered nigh impossible, hence the call for a punishable exploit. G2 Sports and Guild Esports had met in the round-of-16 after successfully securing wins against VASTA Gaming and Team Queso, respectively. Guild Esports managed a 13-10 score in the detested victory.
Valorant Community Raises Concerns About Riot Games’ Decision
Both G2 sports and Guild Esports fans took to social media to express their concerns on Riot’s decision to kick the latter out of the qualifier. Guild Esports fans insist that their players consulted the match referee before proceeding with the “exploit”, to which he never gave a definite answer regarding its legality. Moreover, most fans from both sides think that an automatic disqualification was too harsh, and perhaps a warning would suffice for such a one-time mistake.
Surprisingly even G2 Sports seemed to be on the same side with their opponents. Jacob Mourujärvi, a roaster with the team, took to his official Twitter account and expressed his disappointment in how Riot Games handled the matter. Mourujärvi noted that the incident was unfortunate and that he was sorry about it. He went ahead to reveal that Guild Esports would have still won the match with or without the bug since they were the better team the previous day.
G2 sports were also called out for using a banned skin that often causes a play bug. The skin is burned in the Brazilian region. Nevertheless, Guild Esports is still eligible to join the tournament’s qualifiers next week, to select the eight teams participating in December’s Main Event.