The weekend was an extremely eventful one for Counter Strike Global Offensive fans following the Dreamhack Winter tournament. Teams Fnatic and LDLC were ordered to replay a quarter finals match after it was discovered that Fnatic was using an illegal boost to overturn their losing streak against LDLC.
Dreamhack tournament rules prevent any team from using boosts or exploiting clipping errors in maps to gain an unfair advantage over opponents. Which is precisely what Fnatic decided to do when they fell behind and began losing. It had turned out that the team had discovered an error in the map that allowed them to see the entire map without being seen in return. The error had been known to the team for at least two months before the tournament, and they had chosen to keep it a secret instead of alerting developers and getting it fixed.
In a surprising twist, organisers ordered the match replayed instead of disqualifying Fnatic outright. However, this did not happen as Fnatic then decided to forfeit their match and allow LDLC to progress to the semi-finals; where they beat Na’Vi to qualify for the final round. LDLC then proceeded to win the Dreamhack Winter tournament after defeating Ninjas in Pajamas with a score of 1 – 2.
Final decision. LDLC vs Fnatic last map Overpass will be replayed due to texture transparency and immortal bug used by both teams.
— DreamHack (@DreamHack) November 29, 2014
Fnatic has given an official forfeit in the match against LDLC. LDLC is playing the semi final against Na’Vi at 16:30 CET
— DreamHack (@DreamHack) November 29, 2014
The tournament was initially marred by teams Titan and Epsilon disqualified after members of their teams were banned by Steam for using hacks in ranked games. This latest controversy involving one of the biggest pro-gaming teams in the world has only served to reveal just how much work needs to be done to maintain professionalism within the eSports scene.
At the very least LDLC managed to pull off a happy ending by triumphing in the finals.
