Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen, a former Counter-Strike player for Mad Lions, took over the coaching role in Heroic two months ago following his retirement as a player. ESIC suspended Hunden, Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia, and Aleksandr “MechanoGun” Bogatiryev for abusing a coaching bug in tournaments during ESL and Dreamhack tournaments.
What is this bug?
In short, this bug allowed for coaches to join the spectator role during the game and gain “a free camera/observer position… and could advise their team to react based on that knowledge” (ESL). Any team that used this bug will lose the ESL pro tour points from that tournament and forfeit the prize money they won. Heroic, who took home first place at ESL One Cologne, won this tournament without bug abuse or any other glitches noted in the ESL statement. However, with this bug just becoming known, footage for matches is under review to determine if more coaches took advantage of this.
As part of a recently concluded investigation into the exploitation of a spectating bug in ESL and DreamHack CS:GO tournaments, we are issuing punishments to the coaches of three teams today.
Read: https://t.co/DmM9dP3OUv pic.twitter.com/4fMOhG0RIb
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) August 31, 2020
What Happens to the Coaches?
In the statement put out by Heroic, HUNDEN states that he “saw an edge which I knew was wrong, but I took it and used the bug in-game.” While HUNDEN used this bug, he also reported it to ESL Admin Michau Slowinski to get this removed, even though he knew he would be suspended. To find out if the players knew, Heroic investigated and claimed that no players had any knowledge and has suspended HUNDEN from his role as a coach.
MIBR suspended dead as coach of the Brazilian roster along with MechanoGun of Hard Legion. However, new information shows more teams using this bug.
While ESL believed that dead only used this glitch once, he used it multiple times. In a statement put out by Beyond the Summit, dead used this glitch multiple times against Yeah Gaming, Envy, and Triumph to gain an unfair advantage. Due to this, MIBR is disqualified and will have their prize money taken back. On top of this, footage has revealed that another Brazilian team used this bug. Nicholas “guerri” Nogueira of Furia abused this bug during an entire map against Complexity during ECS Season 7 back in 2019. Furia has not yet suspended guerri from his role as a coach.
I am going to make a lot of Brazilian fans hate me even more with this tweet, but… take a look yourself.
ECS Season 7 Week 2 against Complexity (abused it whole map). He was also bugged in a match day earlier (vs. LG) and decided to reconnect to get it fixed. FACEIT informed. pic.twitter.com/Ha35uROavI
— Michal Slowinski (@michau9_) September 2, 2020
How this Effects the Major
Believe it or not, this bug may affect the 2020 Valve Counter-Strike Major. While this is not official, evidence shows that dead used this bug during ESL: Road to Rio and cs_summit 6. MIBR gained 1375 points during cs_summit and 1500 points during Road to Rio. With this point deduction, MIBR could have had almost no chance to make it to the 2020 major.
