Twitch streamers Gale Adelaide and Brian “Kephrii” St. Pierre, who are particularly well known in the Overwatch community, have been accused of teaming up to cheat at FACEIT’s $100,000 CS:GO ReadyUp Invitational tournament. Many players claim they pushed each other with high point kills to get to the top despite being on opposite teams.
Cheating has no place in esports, but unfortunately, it happens again and again. With esports tournaments offering thousands of dollars in prize money, cheating can be a serious offense resulting in an immediate ban from the competition and future events. However, this often doesn’t stop players from trying their luck.
In a $100k CSGO tournament two players Kephrii and Gale are being accused of teaming and feeding knife kills to the other. This tournament is unique in that prize money is awarded to individual players based on points.
1 kill = 1 point
1 knife kill = 5 points pic.twitter.com/kQtH4zRPYJ— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) July 31, 2022
Did the two streamers cheat?
The scoring system of the ReadyUp Invitational Tournament is a bit unusual in the way that it is based on individual skill rather than team Victory Points. This allows high-scoring individual players to compete for the grand prize. The points are distributed as follows: kill – one point, assist – two points, knife kill – five points.
Since players can hear each other running after them, a knife kill is usually quite hard to get. Despite this, Gale got three knife kills against Kephrii, while Kephrii got two knife kills against Gale. A clip was shown in Jake Lucky’s tweet of Gale killing Kephrii with ease. That, as well as other kills, made many players suspicious. Some players wanted to stop playing, but that would have resulted in disqualification, so the play continued.
Kephrii protest his innocence
Following the accusations, Kephrii stated he was innocent. In a tweet reply to Jake Lucky, he noted that he “really didn’t hear [Gale]” and clarified that he hadn’t played CS:GO in three years and was, therefore, a bit rusty. Kephrii’s explanation for the knife kill on Mirage was that he didn’t hear Gale fall out of the apartment. Meanwhile, Gale haven’t provided any official statement.
I'm really sorry man. I promise you I did not hear him drop. I was holding cat because I was under the impression that you make a noise when you fall from apps. I didn't hear the noise so I didn't look. If I heard it… 100% I would have turned.
— Brian St. Pierre (@Kephrii) July 31, 2022
FACEIT finds player innocent
Since it’s very easy to hear someone sneaking up behind you, it naturally seems suspicious that two players could get five knife kills in such a short amount of time. FACEIT launched an investigation during the game and after reviewing the evidence, found out that there was no foul play by Kephrii.
Despite this decision, Kephrii was later banned from the competition due to an “increasing hostile environment”. Jake Lucky tweeted that despite the outcome of the investigation, many players he had spoken to remained sceptical and believed the two players colluded to gain an advantage.
Statement on the events of the tournament from this weekend. pic.twitter.com/xrWOE8m7i6
— Heaven Media (@heavenmedia) August 1, 2022
Header: Kephrii