In August 2020 ESL banned three CS:GO coaches for using a spectator bug that let them watch parts of the map their players could not see. An investigation by the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) led to bans for 37 coaches that September, Valve turned its findings into Major bans, and appeals were still changing those bans in 2024.
What the coach bug did
In ESL's account, a series of steps could turn a team's coach into an unseen spectator anywhere on the map, free to tell his players what he saw. ESIC later named this the static bug. At the start of a round the coach's camera landed on a random spot, and he could look around from there.
Valve fixed the bug in its August 26, 2020 update, but how long it had been abused is less clear. Players and coaches suggested to Michal Slowinski, the veteran referee who helped uncover it, that it went back to at least 2016, and ESL found abuse at ESL and DreamHack events from ESL Pro League Season 4 that year.
The first bans, August 2020
Slowinski first heard about the bug in June 2020. On August 31 ESL named three coaches it said had knowingly used it at its events:
- Hard Legion's zoneR (MechanoGun in ESL's ruling): 24 months, for six maps at ESL One Road to Rio
- Heroic's Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen: 12 months, for ten rounds at DreamHack Masters Spring
- MIBR's Ricardo "dead" Sinigaglia: six months, for one round at ESL One Road to Rio
Their teams were retroactively disqualified from those events and lost the ESL Pro Tour points and prize money won there.
ESIC's 37 bans
ESIC's rulings apply at its members' events, including those of ESL, DreamHack, BLAST and WePlay. It opened an investigation on September 4, 2020 and gathered almost 100,000 demos, the recordings of past matches, from the HLTV and ESEA databases.
On September 28 it banned 37 coaches for between 3.75 and 36 months. Demerit points, based on how often and for how many rounds a coach had used the bug, set a base ban of 5 to 36 months. Confessing or helping the investigation brought reductions, such as the 85% cut that left BOOM's Alessandro "Apoka" Marcucci with 5.4 months.
zoneR received the maximum 36 months for 424 rounds across 16 maps. The list also named FURIA's Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira, OG's Casper "ruggah" Due and former FaZe coach Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström, who denied passing on any information.
A banned coach could not be near his team or talk to it from 15 minutes before a match until the end, join the server or take part in the map veto, where teams pick and ban the maps to be played. ESIC said it could not establish whether the teams themselves were complicit.
Valve's response: Major bans and no coaches online
Valve's initial response came on September 9, 2020, in the post that cancelled the Rio Major. "It is unfortunate and frustrating that we did not respond to this bug sooner," it wrote. Teams disqualified for exploiting the bug at a Regional Major Ranking (RMR) event, one of the qualifiers for Majors, would have their RMR points reset, and Valve said it might limit coaching.
On January 27, 2021 it translated ESIC demerits into Majors a coach had to miss:
| ESIC demerits | Majors missed |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 2 |
| 4 | 3 |
| 5 | 5 |
| 6 or more | All |
The same post barred coaches and all other staff from the room and the server during online matches, citing how common the abuse had been, how long it went unreported and how often coaches had been accused of stream-sniping, meaning watching the live broadcast for information.
Valve did not apply ESIC's reductions. Apoka was banned from every Major, and guerri's four-month ESIC ban became a Valve ban running until after the second Major of 2023. RobbaN, back as FaZe's coach from 2021, missed two Majors, and FaZe won the Antwerp Major in 2022 without him.
Three variants and the Antwerp Major
In May 2022 ESIC described three variants. The static bug was now traced to 84 people, 47 more than the 37 already banned. A milder third-person variant, which lasted a single round each time, affected 47 people and carried 30 days per round. Three people had hit a free-roam variant that let them fly around the map, which ESIC treated as cheating, with bans of up to 24 months.
ESIC said that failing to act properly when bugged was enough, whether or not a team used what its coach saw. Days before the Antwerp Major began on May 9, it charged and provisionally suspended three coaches due to attend: Imperial's peacemaker for one free-roam round in 2018, Spirit's Sergey "hally" Shavaev for one static round in 2019 and 9z's Rafael "zakk" Fernandes for one and a half static rounds. PGL and Valve, which are not ESIC members, barred all three from the Major.
ESIC withdrew peacemaker's cheating charge after his reply, which included expert testimony; he accepted a lesser charge of failing to report the bug and 22 days, already served. zakk's suspension ended in late June, and hally's on September 4 after an appeal. Spirit had reached the Antwerp semi-finals without him, and in December 2024 hally coached them to the Perfect World Shanghai Major title.
Appeals and lifted bans
In August 2022 ESIC accepted late appeals from Apoka and guerri, changed its formula so that reductions also lowered demerit points and asked Valve to follow. Valve initially declined, then in March 2023 lifted the Major bans of guerri, Apoka and Anton "ToH1o" Georgiev without giving a reason. By then guerri had missed three Majors.
In August 2024 an ESIC appeal, filed four years after the original ruling, overturned PARIVISION coach F_1N's permanent Valve ban. Valve accepted the change, and PARIVISION was reinstated at the European RMR for the Shanghai Major.
The rules coaches work under now
Valve's Major rulebook still carries the 2021 rule: when admins are not physically present, as in online matches, no team staff, including the coach, may be present or communicate with the players. Where admins are present, coaches may talk to players only during warmup, half-time and tactical timeouts.
Valve's 2020 post asked players and coaches to pause the match and alert the admins about any issue that could give either side an unfair advantage. ESIC has said a coach who finds himself bugged should pause the round and reconnect under an admin's supervision, with the opponents told.
Stickers from the teams involved
Heroic and FURIA are in the 2020 RMR Legends capsule, OG in 2020 RMR Challengers and BOOM in 2020 RMR Contenders. Imperial's Antwerp stickers are in the Antwerp 2022 Challengers capsule, and Spirit's and 9z's in Antwerp 2022 Contenders, each in paper, glitter, holo and gold. Part of the capsule sales went to the teams, as the Major sticker capsules article explains. The sticker filter on Buy finds listings with a specific team sticker applied.
Sources
- Update on Majors and Coaching — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- 2021 RMR Update — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Major Supplemental Rulebook — Valve on GitHub
- Exploitation of coach spectating bug in CS:GO — ESL
- ESIC to issue charges resulting from historical spectator bug investigation — ESIC
- ESIC issues bans to 37 coaches for spectator bug use — HLTV.org
- ESIC lift Spirit coach hally's suspension — HLTV.org
- guerri, Apoka, ToH1o unbanned from Majors — HLTV.org
