Valve bans worst CSGO coaching bug abusers from future Majors

Valve announced the extent of punishments to coaches who abused the CSGO bug based on the ESIC’s independent findings, with multiple people indefinitely banned from the company’s prized Major events.

After the initial findings, Valve punished teams and 37 coaches based on the initial announcement of people abusing a spectator bug that made it possible to gain unfair advantages during a live match.

This resulted in all teams found to have used the bug forfeiting their Regional Major Rankings (RMR) qualifying points, with more individual consequences being handed to the specific coaches that were using the exploit.

Now the company has followed up with more changes as a result of the coaching bug saga, with new rules for online RMR matches as well as ineligibility for those found using the bug.

Valve issue bans for CSGO coaches

While the studio is generally hands off with the CSGO scene in its entirety, they’ve given a general outline of how many Majors coaches will be ineligible based on the ESIC demerits from their full report.

“As our follow up, we have decided that coaches that exploited the camera bug will be ineligible to participate in some number of future Valve-sponsored events–that number to be determined by the extent of the abuse.”

These ‘demerits’ are based on “the frequency as well as the duration of the abuse of the Spectator Bug” decided by the ESIC and outlined in their findings.

• Read more: Banned CSGO pro Jamppi switches to Valorant

While there are many who will be barred from a few Majors, the following have been permanently banned:

• Alessandro ‘Apoka’ Marcucci
• Morgan ‘B1GGY’ Madour
• Bruno ‘bruno’ Ono (who went by ‘ellllll’)
• Ivan ‘F_1N’ Kochugov
• Arthur ‘prd’ Resende
• Allan ‘Rejin’ Petersen
• Slaava ‘Twista’ Räsänen
• Aleksandr ‘zoneR’ Bogatyrev (who went by ‘MechanoGun’)

The ESIC is expected to make their demerit calculations public in the near future. Director of Global Strategy & Partnership at ESIC Stephen Hanna said there are “a number of ongoing appeals” and will update Valve if there are any changes.

Valve RMR coaching rule change

Along with the new rulings, Valve also announced a competition-wide rule change as it pertains to coaches’ participation in RMR online matches that will keep managers from being in the same room as their players.

“During online matches only players are allowed in the room and on the server. Neither coaches nor any other team staff will be allowed in the room, on the server, or to otherwise communicate with the team during an online match,” Valve said.

Due to “how commonly coaches exploited the bug, for how long it went unreported, as well as how common coach stream-sniping accusations have been” this rule will apply to all coaches regardless if they were implicated in the findings.

• Read more: 35 CSGO players banned by ESIC for betting offences

This is a sweeping change to come out of ESIC’s investigations and is already causing frustration among those impacted.

“I did nothing wrong and get punished the same. Honestly just heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time,” Evil Geniuses head coach Wilton ‘zews’ Prado said.

“Thanks to everyone who knew about / abused this bug. Thanks to CSGO who can’t even acknowledge their own fault in all of this.”

The next premier CSGO event, the Stockholm 2021 Major, will be in late October.