European esports organization and undisputed Ignition Series kings of Valorant, G2 Esports, have advanced to the European First Strike main event, after defeating regional rival squad Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-0 in the closed qualifier yesterday.
However, G2’s path to the main event was shrouded with controversy after they lost their best-of-one elimination match against Guild Esports 10-13 on Ascent.
However, G2 were awarded the victory by default, after Guild were disqualified for using a banned exploit when they stacked a Sage Barrier Orb on top of a Killjoy Turret to get an unexpected line-of-sight shot into B-main on Ascent.
Riot saw the Sage Wall and Killjoy Turret utility combination as an exploit according to their Global Competition Policy, which was why Guild was handed a forfeit loss.
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The controversy doesn’t end there. During this past weekend’s First Strike qualifiers, Riot announced that the use of the Elderflame Vandal skin would not be allowed in official matches due to a bug that was stated by Luiz Andrade, Riot Games’ League Operations Coordinator in Brazil.
During Brazil’s regional First Strike qualifiers, team Não Mexa’s qualifier win was overturned into a loss after they used the Elderflame Vandal skin for three rounds in the match. Luan “stayziN” Stayy voiced his frustrations to the tournament organizers, Gamers Club Valorant.
However, another player — whose team had qualified for the First Strike Europe main event, FunPlus Phoenix’s Kirill “ANGE1” Karasiow — was quick to point out that G2 Esports used the same weapon skin during the qualifier. ANGE1 tweeted a screenshot of G2’s Patryk “paTiTek” Fabrowski using an Elderflame Vandal in their match against Guild. Following the same rules, G2 should have also suffered a loss for using the same skin, however, they escaped unpunished.
Guild Esports will get another chance to qualify for the European First Strike main event in next week’s qualifiers starting on November 21 at 9:30 p.m. GMT+8 (2:30 p.m. CET).
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