Cheaters will be allowed back in to some 'Counter-Strike' tournaments -- Pros and fans are not happy

When Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players are caught using cheats or hacks, they can kiss their professional dreams goodbye. At least that's how it used to work. Now, one of the biggest tournament organizers is only honoring Valve's ban on cheaters for two years.

Tournament organizer ESL changed its tournament rulebook to state that Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) bans against players are now being waived after two years. This effects all of ESL's CS:GO events: Intel Extreme Masters events, ESL One tournaments and ESL Pro League seasons starting with the upcoming sixth season. The one exception would be if ESL hosts a CS:GO Major like they did with ESL One Cologne in 2016, because Valve sponsors those events, in which case the cheat bans will still stand.

ESL still recognizes other types of bans against players issued by Valve and the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC), including bans for match-fixing. This decision -- to allow cheaters but not match fixers to compete -- has the Counter-Strike community scratching its collective head.

Although some players and fans are divided on ESL's stance against cheaters, nearly everyone seems to agree that players banned for match-fixing should be given the same two-year sentence by ESL (if not less).

Pro player Will "Rush" Wierzba from OpTic Gaming took to Twitter to air his frustrations with ESL's decision.

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Fnatic's Olof "Olofmeister" Kajbjer Gustafsson echoed a similar sentiment during a stream saying, "I think it's stupid to bring [cheaters] back, they should bring back the match-fixing players instead."

In an infamous scandal that unfolded just over two years ago in January 2015, the top North American CS:GO team iBUYPOWER was found guilty of match-fixing. The team lost a match on purpose and earned money from bets placed on the opposing team. Seven people were banned indefinitely from all CS:GO events. Valve changed their indefinite bans into permanent bans a year later in 2016.

FaZe Clan's Finn "Karrigan" Andersen said iBUYPOWER's players should have used cheats to win instead of throwing the match.

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While some of the individuals moved on from CS:GO -- like Keven "AZK" Larivière who now plays professional Overwatch -- a few of the banned players are still pretty active in Counter-Strike, including Sam "Dazed" Marine. ESL's decision to waive Valve's cheat bans after two years gave his fans some hope but he doesn't think the powers that be are going to budge.

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Meanwhile, players like Hovik "KQLY" Tovamassian and Joel "Emilio" Mako, who were banned for using wallhacks (seeing players' outlines through walls) and aim-assists will now be able to compete in top ESL events. KQLY seemed pretty happy about the news.

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People replied to KQLY's tweet with negativity.

"Once a cheater always a cheater," one person said.

"Rather unban all iBUYPOWER guys than one cheater," another wrote.

"What team would want you? Can't have a team when none of the players respect you..." someone tweeted.

Marc Winther, director of the DreamHack Masters tournament series, tweeted that he is not getting behind ESL's decision. Meanwhile ESL's vice president defended his position by saying one of the top CS:GO players in the world, Oleksandr "S1mple" Kostyliev, wouldn't be competing right now if lifetime bans for cheats were instituted.

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S1mple himself pointed out in a tweet that he was never VAC-banned, though. S1mple was caught cheating by a third party service when he was in his early teens (and later tried to evade the ban), so Valve itself never actually levied a punishment against him.

ESL's lower-level leagues and tournaments already follow the two-year policy, and some VAC-banned players have competed with success in those leagues. Those competitions don't have nearly the same level of following as the top-tier pro competitions and players don't make nearly as much money, but it is a way for players who cheated to keep playing CS:GO at a semi-professional level.

Now they can play at a pro level again -- at least at ESL events. Although if ESL is the only organizer that will allow them to play, they won't have much luck finding a team that will sign them.