The top 10 cheaters in esports who have been caught

Nobody likes them, yet no game is safe from them. We’re talking about cheaters. Cheating has always been a part of gaming, as well as traditional sports and esports. It gives the player an unfair advantage, so cheaters are rightly frowned upon in the communities.

Today we bring you the top 10 esports cheaters who have been caught.

10. PUBG radar hack

First on our list is a PUBG scandal that made waves a while ago. We’re talking about the radar hack, which players could use to scan their surroundings for opponents, turning the competitive PUBG scene upside down. After discovering this cheat, a total of 10 PUBG pros were banned for using the software in tournaments, including French esports team Les Krotons, who even won an entire tournament thanks to the hack.

9. Emilio ban during official CS:GO match

It is not uncommon for esport players to be subsequently banned for cheating. Sometimes, professionals are caught even in the middle of the game, just like the number nine on our list. In the FragBite Masters Season 3, the CIS organization Hellraisers faced the Swedish team Property. In the middle of the game, a message suddenly appeared in the chat box — the Swedish rifler Joel “emilio” Mako was VAC banned during the match. Valve’s anti-cheat software detected unusual software on emilio’s computer and took immediate action. Unsurprisingly, emilio was then kicked out of the team and banned from all future Fragbite events.

8. Hunden CS:GO spectator bug exploit

Hardly any scandal caused as much outrage as the spectator bug exploit by Heroic coach Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen. Even if the whole thing was less of a cheat and more of a bug, the Danish head coach took advantage of it and manipulated the game. With the help of the bug, the coach who watches their team play via the spectator tool could remain in one place on the map and thus pass on information to his team. While some coaches were aware of the bug but didn’t take advantage of it, in Heroic’s match against Astralis, HUNDEN diligently shared info with his team about what was happening at the spot on the map where he was stuck. HUNDEN and the rest of his coaching team received sentences of up to 36 months.

7. Virtus.Pro replaces players

A mysterious doppelganger is number seven on our list. In the Dota 2 EU Qualifier Finals in 2016, Virtus.Pro played against the Greek organization Ad Finem. During the game, the VP player Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin experienced connection problems. The teams agreed on a break to give the players a chance to get back into the game. What VP did instead can hardly be surpassed in terms of audacity. They swapped their player with fellow pro Vladimir “Noone” Minenko from team Vega Squadron, who logged into the ALOHADANCE’s account and helped Virtus.Pro win the best-of-five series. A Reddit user noticed the gameplay inconsistencies between the two players and wrote a post uncovering the truth.

6. Atun mouse macro cheat

As our list has shown so far, there are many different types of cheating. Peruvian Dota 2 player Juan “Atun” Ochoa has found another way to gain an unfair advantage and used mouse macros to cast his abilities faster in-game. However, this way of cheating is very obvious, so he sometimes cast 3 abilities at the same time, which is not humanly possible. The unusual behaviour was noticed by a Reddit user who followed the game between Thunder Predators, Atun’s team, and Pain Gaming in the Ti8 South America Qualifier and quickly wrote a post with evidence. Admins reviewed gameplay and shortly thereafter disqualified Thunder Predators.

5. KQLY style

Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian was considered one of the best Counter-Strike professionals, who played side by side with legends like kennyS and apEX under the banner of the French organization Titan. Emphasis on “played” here, as the Frenchman received a VAC ban in 2014, making it impossible for him to ever play at a Valve tournament again. No one knew if he cheated in LAN tournaments or online, however, what is certain is that the anti-cheat software had caught an extremely prominent victim. KQLY was the first CS pro to be accused of cheating at the time, which is why his ban made such waves. The scene became aware that other players could also cheat, and the accusations piled up among other players as well. KQLY was kicked out by his team and played his last Counter-Strike tournament in 2017.

4. Azubu Frost map exploit

Fourth on our list is the South Korean League of Legends team Azubu Frost and their keen interest in the big screen at the tournament, which is only intended for spectators. At the start of the League of Legends Season 2 World Championship Quarterfinals match, team members of Azubu Frost let their eyes wander from the monitor to the screen to be able to pinpoint the exact position of their opponents, the North American squad TSM. You could even see pings in the Fog of War from the Koreans, suggesting they knew more than they should have. Azubu Frost was fined $30,000 for looking at the opponent’s map.

3. Hosty stream sniped tournament

Number three on our list is a somewhat clumsy attempt at cheating by former Canadian Hearthstone pro Raphael “Hosty” Tsantili. During the Hearthstone Pinnacle 2 tournament in 2015, Hosty happened to stream his own game sniping. There was a 10-minute delay on the stream and as if that wasn’t odd enough, his webcam showed a reflection of the screen he was streaming the match on. He almost unintentionally betrayed himself. The action brought Hosty nothing but trouble. Not only did he finish last in the tournament, but his organization Archon also kicked the Canadian out just hours after the incident.

2. Cameron Jeffer’s eCycling cheat

The following cheat attempt sounds strange, and it is. Cameron Jeffers was a professional eCycling athlete on the video game Zwift, in which players ride bicycles on stationary bikes and transfer the power they perform on the bike into the game. In 2019, Cameron was stripped of all his previous titles in this discipline. The reason — he admitted to having cheated by using software which gave him an advantage over his competitors. For this, he received a six-month ban and a fine of £250.

1. Forsaken word.exe

First place in our top 10 list of esports cheaters goes to Indian Counter-Strike player Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat. At ExtremesLand Zowie Asia 2018, OpTic India were playing RevolutionVN when the tournament admins noticed something was up with Forsaken’s style of play. His PC was quickly checked and admins discovered a cheat program, which Forsaken tried to disguise as a word.exe program. When he was caught, he tried to prevent the admin from further insight into the ominous program, but in vain. OpTic India were disqualified and Forsaken is still serving his 5-year ban.