Ex-Cloud9 Coach Valens has used Coaching Bug

As the ESIC was able to determine in an investigation, ex-Cloud9 coach Valens apparently used the Viewer Bug on three maps and thus violated the rules. Although there is solid evidence, he denies any blame and says he didn’t know what the bug was exactly.

Who is Valens?

Soham “Valens” Chowdhury used to be a coach at Cloud9 and currently works at Evil Geniuses as the Head of Data Science. Prior to coaching, Valens was a professional gamer himself, playing for Complexity among others. In 2016, he moved into coaching with TSM, and a year later he became a coach at Cloud9.

Now it came out that Valens had used the coaching bug during his time with Cloud9. In total, Valens was caught using the bug three times. There is evidence of this and on it you can see how he watched areas on Inferno and Train, among others. You can also see him moving his mouse to track his players.

On Inferno, he had his eyes on the B-site for three rounds during a closed EPICENTER qualifier against Liquid, while on Train, he had his eyes on OpTic’s T-spawn during the first round of Pistols in ESL Pro League Season 7 North America. But the most surprising part is that Valens was able to wander around with a clear view (the so-called free-roam version of the bug) while the round was live on Mirage in the same EPICENTER series against Liquid.

Valens denies knowledge of bug

Valens has spoken out about the allegations and denies his culpability. He commented that he encountered the bug several times without knowing what it was and stressed that he did not share any information with the team. He added that he thought it was simply a glitch that would go away, and that at least once he contacted the tournament organization about it in the middle of the game:

“It was quite possible that I was just waiting for it to reset, because most weird glitches in the game just disappear after you press a few buttons, like the weird height bug where the model can look over things until you crouch or jump. I definitely don’t know how this happened, and I haven’t looked for it. I hope it’s self-explanatory of my intent that there is no pattern to getting to this game state.”

In fact, he could have used the viewer bug to his advantage much more often, but it happened quite rarely. From there, it’s hard to judge whether he knew about it or not.

ESIC investigation still ongoing

In 2020, a huge investigation was launched by the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) over the bug. The investigation went back to 2016. As a result, 37 coaches were banned and the scandal shook the entire esports scene. The ESIC also subsequently banned 35 more CS:GO pros for match fixing and betting offenses.

As it seems, there are still cases under review as well. The viewer bug investigation is one of three investigations that are still ongoing, according to the ESIC. The commission is also investigating allegations of match-fixing in the ESEA Premier North America and corrupt practices involving CIS team Akuma during the Regional Major Ranking tournament hosted by Epic League last spring.