T1 suspend Valorant coach following VCT qualifier controversy

T1 have announced that Valorant head coach David Denis has been suspended for the upcoming VCT qualifier following a recent violation of Riot Games’ competitive rules.

The announcement comes just days after T1 were forced to forfeit their Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) qualifier series against TSM over “violating rules regarding unauthorized communication” during the match.

This was in response to a revelation from TSM that T1’s coach was typing messages to his team mid-game – a violation of the VCT rulebook, which prohibits coaches from communicating with players during matches outside of timeouts and technical pauses.

In a statement, T1 explained that they conducted a “thorough review of the actions that took place” during the qualifier. The organization expressed “regret” for breaking the tournament’s rules and stressed that the decision to suspend David Denis was made “proactively”.

T1 added that their team has been given the green light by Riot Games to compete in the second open qualifier, scheduled for February 4-7. There are now just four spots up for grabs in the VCT North America Stage 1 Challengers, a $200,000 competition featuring the best teams in the region, including VCT Stage 2 Masters champions Sentinels, and Stage 3 runners-up Envy.

David Denis, a performance coach who previously worked for Cloud9, TSM, and Gen.G, has been in T1’s ranks since February 2021.

After his suspension, Denis clarified his role in the situation and provided more details on the nature of the chat logs Riot reviewed before reaching a verdict.

“The communication logs show that all communication I had with players happened in between rounds or to a player who was already eliminated,” he said. “This communication consisted of encouraging/supportive statements and general reminders. One exception to this was ‘help sewers.’ There are no excuses for this.

“I did not participate in the practice of watching the livestream during a match, or relaying any information to the players that they did not already have.”

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Before the start of the new season, T1 overhauled their Valorant roster with the addition of three new players, including former 100 Thieves captain Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan, as they look to scale greater heights in the game in 2022 after a disappointing year.