Once upon a time, Indian CS:GO was a prominent representative in Asia. Indian team Team Wolf was the first Asian team to appear in the Major tournament, as they made it to the main stage of ESL One Cologne Major back in 2014. However, Indian CS:GO quickly declined afterward and has not appeared on the international stage since. Instead, in 2018, during the offline eXTREMLAND tournament, Indian player forsaken was caught cheating on stage, drastically tarnishing the image of Indian CS:GO internationally.
To completely change this stereotypical impression and promote the development of Indian CS:GO, Indian esports event organizer SkyEsports announced in April this year that they would host the SkyEsports Masters with a total prize pool of $245,000. Unexpectedly, another cheating scandal broke out during the qualifiers for the tournament.
This incident occurred during the Mumbai qualifiers of the SkyEsports Masters a few days ago, with matches being played online. According to reports, Skyesports implemented anti-cheating measures from a certain platform during the online playoffs to maintain fairness in the matches. The suspected team, D5 (Destructive 5), was said to be a well-established local team. They defeated Reactive, Cosmo 5, Built Different, and Wasted Potential to secure the second place in the tournament and won a cash prize of 40,000 INR. After the tournament, other participating teams suspected D5 of cheating and protested to the tournament organizers, requesting a review of the recorded matches.
Shivy from the Reactive team stated, “When I played against D5, I didn’t notice anything suspicious, but after watching the footage, I have to point out that D5 players showed exceptionally sharp reactions in every scenario. As for the rest, let the experts handle it.”
Ember from the Reactive team said, “At first, I didn’t suspect anything. I thought they were well-prepared. But after everyone started to doubt, I watched the recordings, and everything became clear. They were extremely sharp and quick in their responses to every possibility during the matches, with a clear mind.”
Catastrophy from the Built Different team, which was eliminated by D5 in the semifinals, also expressed his dissatisfaction, saying, “Our entire team had suspicions about them from the first map. But we continued the match and gave our best to win because we love this game. We suspected them from their match against God’s Reign in the Del TEC Pune qualifiers. It’s heartbreaking because many players have transitioned to Valorant, but we haven’t given up on our CS dreams. We hope to have more opportunities through participating in Skyesports Masters and upcoming tournaments. The effort and sacrifices we have put into this game have brought us to this position, and it’s heartbreaking when people use cheats in official matches. People have dedicated a lot of time and made sacrifices concerning their families for this game, and they shouldn’t think they can get away with anything just because they claim to be veterans. Regardless of whether they are ultimately found guilty of cheating or not, I won’t stop striving for the prosperity of the Indian esports scene.”
The Wasted Potential team’s players strongly suspected the use of aimbot and wallhack cheating by Destructive 5’s player Sam. They believe this was a turning point in the match, as they were leading with a score of 15-9, but everything quickly went downhill after that.
“I have played with these people (D5) offline, and I never noticed any suspicious behavior until we participated in Skyesports’ online qualifiers,” said a player from the Wasted Potential team. “On the day of the finals (Skyesports LAN qualifiers), we faced D5 when the score was 15-9, and then their player Sam disconnected and rejoined after 10 minutes. After that, the direction of the match changed, and everything became unbelievable. We couldn’t play normally anymore, and we lost in overtime. We gave up the match on the second map, Inferno. We reported Sam (D5’s player) for cheating to the administrators, but they ignored it and took no action. We were forced to finish the match. After reviewing the footage, we confirmed that he was using aimbot cheat software and possibly wallhack. It’s not just us; the Built Different team had the same feeling.”
An Indian netizen, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “This kind of incident is common. CS:GO has become a means for some people to make money. They only care about money and have no shame. They have no regard for sportsmanship.”
Regarding the community’s concern about this issue, the organizers of the SkyEsports event confirmed that they are currently investigating the matter. They have set up a committee of experts to closely review the recorded matches and find evidence of alleged fraudulent activities.
