Team VAC player Emil “emilshe1n” Mamedov had found an unconventional way to spend a technical pause in an official CSGO game, little did he know that it’d be costing him a ban.

ESIC and @ESL issues ban to Team VAC Player Emil “emilshe1n” Mamedov



Read:https://t.co/wKhRylhG4f pic.twitter.com/6oVio68uvj — ESIC (@ESIC_Official) April 30, 2020

An ESL CSGO premiership group stage match held on April 28th saw team VAC take on team nerdRage in a Bo1 game. When the match was underway, a technical pause was issued as a result of a team VAC player having connection problems.

According to a statement made on the official ESIC page, they had investigated an allegation against the team when they found that during the technical pause, emilshe1n had hopped on to the official ESL stream. Now since there’s a delay in the actual game and the stream, it wouldn’t be possible for any player to get information on the opponent’s economy by watching a stream. But according to the ESIC website, the pause lasted for seven minutes which means the delay would fall short – “The player should not have looked at the Twitch stream at all, but the violation was particularly egregious because the technical pause ran for seven minutes and, with the overall standard delay of GOTV and broadcast in place of three and a half minutes, there was enough time to gain information that could be used to gain an advantage.”

The team VAC player thus could potentially be stream-sniping on an official ESL tournament, which is undoubtedly a punishable offense.

They then quoted sections 2.11.2, 2.3.3 and 6.4 of the ESL Premiership CS:GO Spring 2020 Season Rulebook which covered rules on “Information Abuse”, “Cheating or attempting to cheat to win a Game or Match” and “Punishments for Cheating” respectively.

The punishments issued for the rule breach are summarized below:

Team nerdRage would be automatically awarded the match win.

Two major penalty points would be given to team VAC, resulting in a 20 percent deduction in their potential prize money.

Emil “emilshe1n” Mamedov would be banned from participating in all ESL and all ESIC regulated tournaments till the end of the ESL CS:GO Premiership Autumn season, 29th November.

The swift banning of the alleged “cheater” is bound to set a reminder for players in future that there are no shortcuts on the way to the top of the ladder in competitive Counter-Strike.