GrayFox Esports CS2 pro player Agneya “Marzil” Koushik says, there was sufficient proof to show that MARCOS Gaming player Chintan “BunTz” Shukla was spoofing during the Skyesports Masters India Qualifier tournament which was held last month.

Speaking in a recent exclusive interview with Fragster, Marzil says, whoever was using BunTz’s account at the time was considerably better than the BunTz who they played against in various other tournaments.

“We have played against BunTz in previous tournaments in the past, and the same team basically, and his level of gameplay was entirely different from what we saw on Day 1,” Marzil told Fragster in a Zoom call.

Marzil, who had coached and played in the pro CSGO and CS2 scene, gave further details to Fragster on why he believed BunTz was spoofing. 

“When we observed him play, there were literally no mistakes that were being made that I could point out. That was the level that he was playing at. Now in ten days, to make such a transformation, even if you play 24/7 for those ten days, I don’t think it would be possible to reach that level. That level of angle clearing you had, that level of utility usage, the fact that his role switched up from what he was doing before to what he’s doing now – before, he was just throwing in some corner of the map and he was just told to jump spot and throw some basic utility in the previous games that we played.

 

These allegations surfaced on social media and became the trigger for more gamers to call for tournament integrity after Marzil and other players accused BunTz of spoofing. ID spoofing in pro esports is basically defined as having someone use a registered player’s account. 

“Now, you could argue that he’s improved a lot in the time that we played him before and the time we played him now, but the previous tournament we played with him was ten days ago. In ten days, he made a complete transformation to become one of the best players that I have spectated and played against,” Marzil added. “Even the current best players in the world or even HLTV’s top 10 players, if you take anybody, you don’t see that level of improvement. Unrealistic. It’s improbable and that’s why I am a strong believer, I’m 100% sure that he was highly spoofing.”

“But on that day, he was taking charge, he was entry fragging, he was going off, he was asking for drops from other players that, before, were better than him and it was such a dramatic change to see,” said Marzil.

 

GrayFox Esports went up against MARCOS Gaming once in the tournament where Marzil’s team lost to BunTz’s team. MARCOS eventually finished in third place in the tournament.

 

SKYESPORTS AND MARCOS’ RESPONSE

 

Marzil said they repeatedly presented to tournament organizers their concerns about BunTz’s conduct.

“We compared that with all the previous instances of them playing the same maps. So we did raise our concerns to Skyesports and showed it to them, and look, he’s spoofing,” Marzil said.

Skyesports chief Shiva Nandy also posted an update last March 29th about the spoofing allegations, saying among the initial measures they took were requiring a player cam, a mid-round video call during their game to confirm he was playing, as well as sending an admin to the cafe and running through their voice comms. 

Nandy said, the team ran through MARCOS’s voice comms and “found no ‘alien’ player apart from the registered roster.”

He also added, “As a default rule for a broadcast game, players mandatorily have to be on face cams through their series. Since BunTz was playing from a cafe he was not able to provide an angle which gave both himself and the PC’s view.”

Marzil, however, disputes this. “On day 1, it wasn’t a cafe. On day 1, he was playing from home which was very, very, very fishy and very sketchy. It did not make sense.”

Eventually, Skyesports decided to call what it claimed were experts in the field of CS2 to determine whether or not BunTz was spoofing.

“After thorough investigations conducted by our team and other experts, we regret to inform you that we were unable to conclusively tie down Buntz from MARCOS Gaming to the allegations made against him due to insufficient proof,” Skyesports said in a statement dated March 31st.

“We don’t know who their experts are, they’re refusing to reveal who their experts are, and they apparently conducted an investigation – a sophisticated, intricate investigation – and then they said there’s not enough proof,” Marzil reacted.

Akhil, MARCOS Gaming’s co-founder, earlier said they have cooperated with tournament organizers regarding the incident.

“Whatever skyesports asked for we have provided in future also we will provide the same if there is a malpractice Marcos as an org doesn’t support it but we dont pass judgement on X so let TO take the decision,” Akhil posted on X.

BUNTZ RESPONDS TO SPOOFING ALLEGATIONS

 

(Photo from Dust2.IN)

In an interview with Dust2.IN, BunTz said his good performance in the Day 1 of the Indian Qualifier was due to “rectifying mistakes” with his team.

However, he denied any instance of ID spoofing and says that after the allegations surfaced on social media, he felt the pressure and performed miserably.

“A bunch of café players came to watch our game in the Grand Slam and this tournament as well. But due to the pressure, our team environment was bad; no one was performing at their best,” BunTz told Dust2.IN.

“Everyone is saying we were under heavy surveillance, which affected my performance. rite2ace mentioned that the café owner said no one played on my PC, and he doesn’t believe it. So what can we do? If no one believes in Café Owners, then spoofing can be done even from that camera angle. Moreover, if we were attempting ID spoofing, why did we lose in the Grand Slam Grand Final, where we didn’t drop a single match? We were one match away from glory at that time, and I was underperforming. The pressure and stress made us uncomfortable, and we couldn’t perform well. Even the things in-game that I can usually do easily, I messed up. This is something that never happens even on FACEIT,” BunTz said.

However, Marzil contests this, saying, “but the minute they had complete surveillance on day 2 and day 3 and whichever days he played subsequently, he reverted back to the BunTz that we saw played 25 days ago, 10 days ago. His gameplay was night and day.”

“I also did a livestream comparing while he was playing live, after it was finished we downloaded the demo and I compared his gameplay to how he performed on day 1, and even if you play casually, you can tell there are two different people playing. Based on the roles that they were performing, based on how they were playing, there was no resemblance at all.”

On April 1st, MARCOS Gaming posted again on X, saying they supported Skyesports and Nandy’s investigation.

“We will be discussing internally around Buntzz and take a decision. Please wait for an official update.”

As of press time, no update has been released yet by the organization on BunTz’s status.

 

MARZIL: REFORMS NEEDED TO ENSURE TOURNAMENT INTEGRITY

As a result of this incident, Marzil now calls on tournament organizers in India to heighten up their protocols to ensure tournament integrity, especially in high-stakes esports tournaments.

“I think if its an online game that happens, a live cam system will be very, very helpful. Its going to eliminate at least issues like this, of ID spoofing or of some people using radar hacks and all of that right. A camera that watches both you playing as well as the monitor itself,” Marzil says.

Marzil himself is no stranger to controversy, having been part of the infamous OpTic India roster that was remembered for the infamous “word.exe” cheating incident initiated by his former teammate Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat back in 2018.

He says these two separate experiences, six years apart and in different points of view – taught him valuable life lessons.

“Usually you’d think that people would have some self-respect that they won’t do something like this after, especially after some person has got caught – as least out of fear or out of self-respect, you won’t try and jeopardize other people or you won’t try to jeopardize your own country’s image. But I think I was foolish to think that this sort of incident won’t repeat because it’s right in front of my eyes. 

It’s kinda sad, really, I just understand now better that people will do anything for success even if it means dropping their self-respect completely.” 

“As a player to be honest, they (MARCOS Gaming) didn’t cheat. They ID spoofed, which is illegal, which breaches tournament rules, which should be punished. But they didn’t cheat, at least to my knowledge,” Marzil said.

He is also pushing for more LAN tournaments, especially in critical tournament stages.

“I think most of the tournaments when it reaches the close qualifier stage should be pushed to perform on LAN. It should be conducted on LAN. It doesn’t have to be an extravagant, expensive LAN. It just has to have like 10 PCs, and then 5 versus 5, and then if we wanna have a crowd, if we wanna have an admin, whatever it is, you just have everything happen on LAN where there is no possibility of such shenanigans happening,” Marzil said.

As for Skyesports, said they are making better efforts towards upholding their tournaments’ integrity.

“We understand the importance of maintaining ethical standards and ensuring fairness for all participants. Moving forward, we will redouble our efforts to implement robust measures for preventing and addressing misconduct, while also safeguarding the rights of individuals involved,” Skyesports said in a tweet. – PAOLO BARCELON, FRAGSTER.COM