Team Besties banned for 18 months following ringing accusations

Riot Games has come out with a competitive ruling on Team Besties, who were accused of using unregistered players during an official game. The Team Besties ban totals 18 months, the first year for the use of unregistered players and another six months for not cooperating with the investigation according to Riot’s ruling.

Read the full ruling: https://t.co/cRhn7D4FF1 pic.twitter.com/1n2gukFcCd

— VALORANT Esports NA (@valesports_na) July 12, 2021

Why Riot banned Team Besties

The primary suspicion came from a change in ping for one of the players, Mia “kei” Leong. In the first five games of VALORANT Champions Tour Game Changers, kei’s ping to Texas servers was at a stable 52ms. In the next three games against Team Invicta and 100emoji, kei’s ping suddenly changed to 68ms. As well as the changes in ping, the Kill/Death differential for kei went from -39 to +44, and the +44 games were all played on either Reyna or Jett. The player only played Sova beforehand.

Another point of suspicion was caught by tournament admins in the pre game lobby. An unregistered account known as “arentikawaii” was on the side of Team Besties despite never registering. Tournament admins also found voice communication recordings of “what is the password” from a Team Besties player, implying a separate player would be logging in the lobby that was not part of the team. Riot also worked with tournament officials to find that kei’s account had multiple log-ins from different locations in North America during Game Changers. While Team Besties initially denied the accusations, they eventually admitted to fault. According to the Game Changers rulebook, having someone else play on a registered account is known as “ringing” and is a violation of rule 7.2.7.

The final ruling extends to all registered players who were a part of Team Besties. The 18 month ban is for the following players:

Jenna “koi” Tang
Katie “kateuuu” Tran
Mia “kei” Leong
Jasmine “memrice” Huynh
Jennifer “wetboosy” Li
Bella “soju” Rierad