Top10 craziest esports scandals

Like any other industry, the esports scene has its dark sides as well. Over the past few years, some small, but also a lot of big scandals have come to light, causing a backlash in the community.

From fraud and threats to match-fixing, we’ve seen it all. You can laugh about some of them, but if you look at some of these scandals, you’re wondering how someone could think that this was a good idea.

Today we’re presenting the top 10 scandals in esports.

10. League of Legends – The Fake Final

It was 10 years ago, but in 2012 League of Legends Esports became really big. Exactly in that year, Team Dignitas and Curse were supposed to meet in the MLG finals. However, the final turned out to be completely different than expected. In the first game of the day, both teams decided to play only on the midlane, as if it was an ARAM match, and then play the remaining 4 games normally again. Afterwards it came out that the teams agreed to split the prize money no matter who wins.

When MLG caught on to this, both teams were disqualified and neither should get any prize money. Instead, the $40,000 was split between third, fourth, fifth and sixth place. Overall, the event was not as “scandalous” as other cases, but just plain stupid.

9. League of Legends – Griffin coach fired for abuse

League of Legends team “Griffin”, founded in 2016, managed to advance to the Korean LCK in 2018, where they even managed to finish second in their first Summer Split. Due to the second place, they were also qualified for the League of Legends Worlds 2019, where then also talked about Team Griffin without end, unfortunately not in a positive sense. The coach “cvMax” was fired shortly before the start of the tournament, due to allegations of manipulation, physical and verbal abuse.

It was alleged that the coach had pressured young underage players to sign contracts they didn’t want and had downright forced them to do so. Some people will really try anything to be successful.

8. Counter-Strike – the “OLOFBOOST

Oh well the Dreamhack Winter 2014 and Fnatic should be ringing in everyone’s ears. The quarterfinals pitted the Swedish team against the French LDLC in what could have been one of the best matches of the tournament. The first matches offered exactly the expected tension, but on the decisive map Overpass, something happened that no one expected.

Directly in the spawn of the CTs, the Fnatic players boost themselves in a place where this should not be possible at all. But the Swedes have found an invisible edge that makes it possible for them. Olofmeister can see almost the entire map from there and the match immediately turns. Fnatic wins round by round and turns the 13:2 for LDLC into a 13:16. 

In the end, the match had to be replayed and Fnatic voluntarily gave up under the pressure of the public and gave LDLC the victory.

7. VALORANT – THIS IS AN EXPLOIT… or is it?

Now we come to the situation that caused our rank 8 in the first place. In the match between the Sentinels and the Brazilian Team Furia, the North Americans had a huge lead with 12:4. But the momentum was with Team Furia and they fought their way back round by round. At 12:9, even the last one believed in a miracle and a possible victory for Furia. But then Riot intervened!

Riot Games forced a technical break and checked a jump boost from Team Furia for 20 minutes to see if it was an exploit. The complete momentum that Furia had built up had evaporated. Riot then decided in favor of Team Furia, but due to the long break, they were no longer in their flow and lost the following round immediately.

Afterwards, some Sentinels players, especially Zombs, were still provoking on Twitter. Saying “can’t wait to beat your shitty region again” he brought a lot of people against him. That was the day he learned what karma is. In the match against the Argentinian KRÜ Esports Team, the Sentinels lost and Zombs’ stupid comment was blown out of proportion.

6. Hearthstone – The Sexism Scandal

In 2014, the organizers of a Hearthstone tournament for the Finnish Qualifiers were criticized for allowing only men to participate in the competition. The website where information on how to enter the tournament was found originally stated, “Participation is open to Finnish male players only.”

According to a statement to Esports news website Polygon, this gender-segregation rule was never meant to be sexist, but “an attempt to bring Esports in line with traditional sports.”

5. Smash Bros. Melee – The Crab Toss

Hungrybox is a Smash Bros. Melee legend and so the Team Liquid player also won some tournaments, however, making not only fans but also haters. During the finals of the Pound 2019 tournament, one of the spectators threw a dead crab at Hungrybox, who went completely nuts after that.

4. Counter-Strike – The Easter Bunny visits CS:GO

The next scandal from our list was caused by a German team, and it was the BIG Clan at the PGL Major in 2017. At that time, it was still possible in CS:GO to peek at certain places on the map, with a jump over obstacles, and not be seen if you ducked at the right moment. BIG used this mechanic against the FaZe Clan so extremely that the 16 teams agreed in a gentlemans agreement not to use this mechanic anymore.

3. Counter-Strike – Win or lose? Doesn’t matter! The main thing is money

The iBUYPOWER team was the future of North American Counter-Strike in 2014. They were winning tournaments with S-tier teams and were well on their way to being at the top of the NA scene. However, the team broke on a scandal that changed the Counter-Strike scene. In a match against team NetcodeGuides.com, iBUYPOWER lost in a strange way. It came out that DaZeD, one of iBUYPOWER’s players, was a co-owner of NetcodeGuides and that the team lost the match specifically to make money from the placed bets.

2. FaZe Clan – Save the Kids and our money

Our second place goes to the crypto-scam from FaZe Clan. Kay, Jarvis, Nikan, and Teeqo from FaZe did a decent job of promoting the “Save the Kids” token to help children in need. Surprisingly or not, the price plummeted right after the release. The investors immediately smelled a pump and dump scam that led to the players involved being supended and partially kicked out by Faze.

The incident was never really cleared up and it is hard to believe that the organization would bring such a deal to its players without knowing what was happening there.

1. Counter-Strike – The Coaching Bug

Rank 1, of course, can be nothing else. than the Coaching Bug from CS:GO that shook the Counter-Strike Global Offensive scene. In 2020 it came out that the CS:GO coaches at the highest level, used a Spectator Bug where they could view parts of the map with a free camera. This was used to reveal information about the other team’s positions and give unauthorized tips to their own team. ESIC launched an investigation and more than 37 coaches, including HUNDEN, were banned.