In an unfortunate turn of events, third place Team VALHALLA was disqualified from the PGI EU Qualifiers due to a player ban.

PUBG may still be in its infancy as a major esports event, but some pro gamers are already having problems staying in line. Yesterday, a member of Team VALHALLA named Hugstar tweeted that a teammate named Steezy received in-game bans on two of his accounts. Following some back-and-forth with the community on what should happen to the team, Hugstar later said that Steezy has “gone MIA,” but hopes that he will release a statement to explain himself.

A statement probably won’t help matters anymore. Moments ago, ESL formally disqualified Team VALHALLA from the upcoming PUBG Global Invitational 2018 EU Qualifier Finals. Per the official tournament rules, “you must have an active PUBG account in good standing and link it to your profile.”

Team VALHALLA finished third in their group of 20 teams with 2350 points. Steezy was responsible for 13 of their 44 total kills. Now that they lost their spot, Team Liquid will take their place in the Qualifier Finals. Liquid placed sixth in the same group with 2130 points and 43 kills.

So it has just come to my knowledge that one of our players has gotten a game ban on his account.

Just got informed of this 5 minutes ago. I'm speechless and have no words, I'm in shock right now. I am so sorry for all the teams besides us that this affected in PGI Qualifiers. — Hugstar (@HugstarPUBG) June 4, 2018

Team Liquid CEO Steve Arhancet raised a good point regarding anti-cheat measures:

Pubg needs an anti-cheat developed to take preventative measures against things like this happening. Glad to see the team able to compete at PGI. Good luck guys. — Steve Arhancet (@LiQuiD112) June 5, 2018

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As an emerging esports title, PUBG should consider beefing up its security to deter would-be cheaters and hackers. It wouldn’t completely solve the problem, but safeguarding the integrity of these expensive events needs to be a priority. Disqualifying the entire team, however harsh that seems, does drive the point home in the end and will undoubtedly prevent any problems down the stretch.

PUBG isn’t the first game to suffer through behavioral issues, and it won’t be the last. Several Overwatch League players have enjoyed bench time and fines thanks to account boosting and homophobic statements. StarCraft teams and players have been banned for misconduct on streams and match-fixing.

Even back when I was playing Tribes 2 competitively, players were frequently banned for aim-botting and using illegal (annoying) custom voice commands in competition. Like in any competitive setting, you’re always going to have people risking it all for a slight edge. Hopefully, we’ll see some community-wide improvements to esports in the future, but it’s doubtful.