Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players jezayyyy and woldes managed to make their way to the finals of the 2020 Red Bull Flick finals in Finland, where they came out victorious over their opponents. The win would catapult them on to the EU Closed Qualifier, potentially setting them up to take on professional teams in the world final.
Except they won’t. It turns out they cheated. Now, jezayyyy and woldes are banned.
After the duo’s victory on May 23, videos began spreading of the team’s performance in the tournament. The team’s almost-supernatural ability to snap their crosshairs at their opponent’s heads and find their enemies with ease even when they were hiding behind walls had a fairly simple explanation: they were using an aimbot.
The blatant cheating on display was only possible because, according to a release sent out by Red Bull’s official website, the problem lies with technical issues that were plaguing FACEIT, the group responsible for arranging the tournament. These technical issues meant that FACEIT was not equipped with the latest cheat-detection capabilities – normally, players would get automatically banned for using these sorts of cheats.
It wasn’t just jezayyyy and woldes that were cheating in the tournament. According to the release, there were a total of 80 players involved in tournaments across the FACEIT platform who had used cheats in other competitions.
All of these players have since been banned.
“Thank you to everyone in the community who helped raising awareness of this case, and a sincere apology to all players who have been directly affected by the incident,” Red Bull stated in a release.
The second-place players in the Red Bull Flick tournament, Mikzuu and ykis, will move on to the EU Closed Qualifies.
NEXT: Niantic Confirms Pokémon Go Fest 2020 Is A Go; Event Will Now Take Place Online
