100 Thieves Warzone pro Rated unbanned hours after “false” shadowban

100 Thieves’ Warzone streamer and former Call of Duty pro, Rated, got shadowbanned in the popular battle royale. After turning to Nadeshot and 100T for help, the issue was fixed — but not before he already missed out on a tournament and a full day’s stream.

Rhys ‘Rated’ Price is a former Call of Duty pro and a current Warzone competitor for 100 Thieves. Despite those connections to top-level Activision partners and the fact that he streams daily, the streamer was shocked to find out he was shadowbanned in Warzone.

It’s not clear exactly how shadowbans are decided on, but they are usually placed on players who have received numerous, albeit unverified reports of cheating. Those players then have to wait long queue times to get into lobbies filled with similarly reported opponents — an unsavory experience, to say the least.

Having performed well enough in tournaments to get signed to 100T, Rated has since climbed up the list of Warzone’s highest earners and earns monthly placement among the game’s top players. He’s good enough to get reported by salty casuals he’s killed, but there should be more than enough proof he’s not actually hacking. Apparently, Activision didn’t see that proof until hours after mistakenly cutting him off from the game.

About five hours after realizing he was shadowbanned and taking to Twitter and 100T connections to get the situation sorted, Rated posted explaining that he was finally “free.” Nonetheless, this ruined a full day’s worth of streaming and the chance to participate in a tournament.

What happened with Rated’s shadowban

While being shadowbanned is a good punishment for actual hackers, it can also mean that talented players can get unfairly punished simply for being especially good at the game.

No one cares if a hacker is stuck waiting for a lobby to play against other hackers, but it can ruin a legitimate player’s ability to stream on Twitch or participate in tournaments.

Other streamers, like Rated’s duo, Aydan ‘Aydan’ Conrad, have also been shadowbanned in the past. With a ton of footage available online and a massive audience (over 600,000 followers on Twitter), Aydan’s ban was fixed within a day or so.

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But Rated wasn’t content just waiting around, instead calling on his boss, 100T CEO, Matthew ‘Nadeshoot’ Haag for help.

Rated streams nonstop and has countless peers and former coworkers with Activision connections that can vouch for him. His shadowban did get fixed quickly, and it’s unknown if a call from Nadeshot helped speed things up. A former CoD pro himself and now the founder of an org with its own CDL team, Haag has the clout to make some waves at Activision’s offices.

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While Rated’s situation did eventually get fixed, this situation remains yet another example of the Warzone bans situation existing in chaotic territory.