Top 10 banned esports players

In the world of Esports, it’s pretty hard to keep things like cheating, toxic behavior, or bad conduct a secret when thousands of people are watching.

The consequences for such behavior can range from a raised finger to permanent bans that end some runaways’ careers before they even get started. This is exactly what some players had to experience firsthand. We have the top 10 banned players for you here!

10. Jarvis

First up is well-known Fortnite streamer Jarvis, or rather that was him before he was banned from Fortnite forever after uploading a video of him using an Aimbot. While Jarvis wasn’t playing with his main Fortnite account or PC, and he wasn’t trying to win a tournament or do anything that would compromise the integrity of the game.

He just wanted to entertain his viewers a bit by showing them what it’s like to use an Aimbot. But what ultimately doomed him was that he uploaded the videos to YouTube. It didn’t take him long to realize what a fatal mistake he had just made. In his next video, he tearfully apologized for it and that now has 23. million views. He’s also produced a music video about the whole thing and, with 5 million subscribers on YouTube, should be able to get by without Fortnite.

9. Forsaken

A notorious cheater earned one of the top spots on our list with his actions. It’s about OpTiC India and their player Forsaken, who was cheating on a LAN in all seriousness and was caught red-handed at the Extremes Land 2018 Asia Finals. While the game was running, the tournament organizers noticed that Forsaken was playing a bit too well. As a result, they decided to examine his PC more closely and found a small file called Word.exe. This was a cheat program, which the player preferred to rename. During the investigation he then messed with the admins and tried to delete the file inconspicuously. His team was disqualified from the tournament and later disbanded. The player was banned from all CS:GO tournaments for 5 years and even had to pull out of social media completely after dozens of death threats from angry CS:GO fans.

8. Jensen

A well-known midlaner from North America earned a spot in our top 10. Jensen was banned from Riot many years ago because he just wouldn’t stop acting like an ass. At the time, he was still known as Incarnation and was permanently banned along with some of his teammates for alleged DDoS activity, toxic behavior, and poor sportsmanship. Jensen behaved in an absolutely exemplary manner over the next few years and has been reformed ever since. He grinded the solo cue and coached SK gaming. In 2015, he became the first pro to be allowed to play again after being banned. He is now considered one of the best midlaners and is playing for Dignitas this Season.

 

7. IWDominate

Another well-known streamer earned a place in our list for being too toxic. Before he became a pure content creator, IWDominate was a pro player, but his flaming went so far that he was banned from the LCS for a whole year at the beginning of his career. Many people at the time thought it would be the end of him. While he was banned on his main account, he used a second account to grind the leaderboard and played his way to the top of the NA servers. This paid off when he finally returned to the LCS stage. Unfortunately, Riot later kicked him out of the LoL affiliate program again for 12 months because he violated their guidelines with a comment in the stream. In the meantime, he has established himself even further in the scene and the bans haven’t hurt him in the process.

6. Blitzchung

One of the best Hearthstone players in the Asia-Pacific region decided to address a political debate in the stream, and it cost him dearly. In an interview given after his last game in the 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, Blitzchung donned a gas mask and dark glasses. With this, he wanted to draw attention to the street protests in Hong Kong and also shouted “liberate hongkong” at the end of the broadcast.

As a result, Blizzard decided that the player’s behavior was against their rules and banned Blitzchung from participating in Blizzard’s Esport events for a year. The player also had his tournament winnings of about ten thousand dollars taken away, which the community and fans were not willing to put up with.

For this, Blizzard apologized, gave the prize money back out and shortened the ban to 6 months.  However, Blizzard has still maintained that political statements have no place in their official broadcasts.

 

5. Solo

Dota 2 is unfortunately known for its game manipulation and in one of the first match fixing scandals it came to light back then that the player Solo sabotaged an official match. For $322, he intentionally played badly and coined the term “322” as a synonym for match fixing. At the time, no one knew how to deal with the cheating, and tournament organizer Starladder banned Solo and the rest of the team for life at first. At the time, apparently, it was enough to apologize for the sanctions to be lifted. The player realized his mistake and later became the captain of Virtus.Pro, which was one of the most successful Dota2 teams. After that, he won many majors, made a lot of money and never manipulated games again.

 

4. xQc

You probably already knew it, but popular Canadian streamer xQc has also been banned before and knows a lot about missteps on Twitch. The former Overwatch League pro has even been suspended from the professional league twice, once for making a homophobic comment, and the second time for making a racist slur. He also had to pay a fine for that. He’s also been permanently banned in League of Legends before for being too toxic. But his most blatant action was in the Fall Guys Twitch Rivals, when he really cheekily stream-sniped his opponents. For that he was banned from Twitch for 7 days and was not allowed to participate in Twitch Rival events for 6 months. That left a lasting impression on the scene!

3. Brax

CS:GO player Brax was involved in one of the biggest match-fixing scandals in Esports. At CEVO Season 5, he and his team iBUYPOWER played completely below expectations. When the scandal came to light, Valve pretty much banned the entire roster indefinitely, ending the career of one of NA’s most promising prodigies. Many people in the community felt that Brax’s punishment was way too harsh. CS:GO talents like Semmler and Fallen had a lot to say on the subject. Luckily, a new competitive shooter came out at the time and Brax became the first ex-CS:GO pro to move to VALORANT.

 

2. Shaiiko

A famous ban in Rainbow 6 Siege was given to the player Shaiiko. The player is known for his godlike skills, but in a pro match he was probably so good that he was accused of cheating. The official investigation didn’t reveal anything, but the anti-cheat software had found out that he had pressed the four key with “inhuman speed”. As a result, he was banned for 2 years and had to endure a never-ending stream of ridicule. Although it is still unclear whether Shaiiko actually cheated or not, his story has come to a happy ending. His ban was lifted early and he has returned to the competitive scene to dominate the contests.

 

1. Tyler1

Every LoL player knows the Rage God himself Tyler1. The fact that he has been banned a time or two is actually out of the question. His flaming and shouting are recorded in numerous videos for posterity and you probably can’t even count on one hand how many times he was banned for toxic behavior. At some point, Riot had enough and Tyler1 was permabanned, including on all future accounts. But instead of wallowing in pity he took action and started his own “independent LOL tournament on Twitch in 2017 – the Tyler1 Championship Series. After a while, Riot decided to lift his ban on the condition that he stays clean from now on. In his first stream after the ban was lifted, 400,000 people watched.