Like many esports games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive can be quite unpredictable. You never know what might happen next. A surprising new flashbang. A sneaky stealth play. An interesting new strategy. But today it wasn’t an amazing headshot or well-executed flank that caused jaws to drop.
In the middle of Property’s match against HellRaisers, the message “Player emilioOOo left the game (VAC banned from secure server)” popped across the screen. Woops.
Valve Anti Cheat, aka VAC, is the game’s automatic cheat protection system. Apparently, Joel “Emilio” Mako of Property ran afoul of it during his game in online tournament Fragbite Masters.
It’s unclear with Mako was cheating during the match, being punished for a previous infraction, or even a rare false alarm, but Fragbite took action quickly. Mako and his team Property were quickly suspended from Fragbite Masters.
Property has 48 hours to prove it’s a wrongful ban get Valve to waive it, or they are disqualified from the competition.
Fragbite Masters is an online league with a 300000 SEK prize pot, or around $41,500. Property was unlikely to advance out of a tough Group C filled with world class teams like Fnatic, HellRaisers, and Epsilon, but now they won’t even get a chance.
You can watch the debacle at 3:18:15.
Image via Facebook
