A play from Team Vitality’s recent match against Valiance at the Loot.Bet Cup 3 may bring attention to event organizers and admins for a possible spot-fixing incident.

Team Vitality is a revamped French squad that came to existence almost a month ago. Boasting the likes of Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer the team looks a force to be reckoned with.

Ever since the formation of Team Vitality, the team has attended four qualifiers out of which they have been successful in only one. The team is currently playing the Loot.bet Cup #3 where top four teams will qualify for the offline event scheduled in December.

Team Vitality’s very first match was against Valiance on Dust 2 which the team won with a 16-11 scoreline. While Vitality won the game, one round however, was quite interesting to watch. This was Round 23, where Team Vitality found themselves in a 2v2 situation. With the timer ticking NBK had the job to plant the bomb while ZywOo was holding long from car. With almost 10 seconds on the clock it was a pretty easy plant knowing one CT was in spawn while the other could be predicted to be on short or coming from long.

NBK tried to plant the bomb and then suddenly stopped to try and plant it a few units away. He then stopped again to plant in the same spot as the first place only to know that the round timer had run out. This gave the CTs ample time to retake and with the round already in the bag for Valiance, their AWPer Otto “ottoNd” Sihvo took out the remaining members with some good shots.

The video below will better enlighten you on how the situation unfolded.

Although, this was the last round that Vitality lost to Valiance, it is quite strange to make a mistake of this sort. This claim is further backed by a tweet from Team Vitality’s official page that said “After a sloppy CT side, our CS:GO boys take the best on the T side of Dust 2 to claim the victory 16-11 against”

After a sloppy CT side, our CS:GO boys take the best on the T side of Dust 2 to claim the victory 16-11 against @valianceandco #VforVictory Our next game in this group phase of the LootBet Cup will take place tomorrow or thursday pic.twitter.com/nzzuAXMxtX — Team Vitality (@Team_Vitality) November 5, 2018

This means the team was not playing as expected on the CT side resulting in a 10-5 score in favor of Valiance. With an almost perfect side from Vitality after the switch, this was the only round they lost.

Another important aspect to note is that since this event is a qualifier for the offline event in December, more than one team would be getting a chance to make it through. With how round robins work, it will most likely come down to the points each team has based on the round difference. For example, if a team wins a game 16-0, they would get 16 RD points while the losing team would be on -16 RD. Apart from just winning, the losing team would also have to worry about doing so with a good round difference in order to cover up for the previous deficit.

On the other hand, a 16-14 win might not hurt that much since the only point gain/ loss would be ± 2 points. Now coming back to the Valiance vs Vitality match, the final score was 16-11 which gave Vitality a +5 point lead while Valiance are on -5. If the round mentioned above wasn’t lost due to the planting blunder, the match could have had a possible outcome of 16-10. Although this just changes one point on the whole, it may become a deciding factor in getting qualified for the LAN event in December.

Plus, the biggest factor is the fact that this event is being organized by Loot.bet an esports betting website which is currently listing all matches for Loot.Bet Cup #3. All this calls for a possible interrogation into the incident.

But all this can also be a coincidence considering the mistake happened to none other than Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt who is a long time veteran of the game and a seasoned professional of the scene. And we truly wish the latter to be true since any slight possibility of the former is going to impact pretty badly for everyone involved.

Something similar happened in case of iBUYPOWER who intentionally lost the match against a team in 2014. This resulted in seven players receiving life-time bans which were later reduced but in any case left a deep mark on the esports scene and the entire CS:GO community.

We sincerely hope nothing of this sort has happened this time around, but things do seem to align with a possible controversy. In any case, the community at least expects a response from a few higher officials in this regards or have investigations conducted to clear the matter.

Tell us what you think of the incident and if it demands further scrutiny or not?