Coaches banned as a result of the coach spectating bug

 There have been many coaches who have had sanctions imposed on them as a result of the discovery that these coaches have used the coach spectating bug to gain an unfair advantage against the opposing team. While the bans of some are warranted, I believe the bans of others are not. In this section, I shall explain a few cases. Before I do this, it is imperative for you to understand how these bans were issued.

As I mentioned previously, the Esports Integrity Commission is behind these investigations and is the body issuing these bans. According to HLTV: "It established four tiers of sanctions with bans ranging 5 to 36 months. Meanwhile, it also created a concessions matrix to standardize the process that gave offending coaches the chance to have their suspensions reduced under certain circumstances, which included confessions and assistance in their investigation.

The concession allowances included:

• Confession prior to the investigation announcement: 40% ban period reduction
• Confession accepted in full: 25% ban period reduction
• Confession accepted partially: 12.5% ban period reduction
• Assistance in the investigation: 20% ban period reduction" (HLTV)

Coach #1: Twista

              Photo courtesy of Liquipedia

Slaava "Twista" Räsänen is the former coach of the tier 1 Finnish Counter Strike team ENCE. ENCE reached their professional peak in the first quarter of 2019, at the VALVe-sponsored major Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2019. As an underdog of the tournament and scene, they made it all the way to the grand finals where they were beat by reigning champions & 3x major winners Astralis, a tier 1 Danish team. Twista became coach of ENCE on August 23rd of 2018 (HLTV). Twista's addition to the roster was the start of the journey for ENCE to become a household name.

Twista was issued a ban of 15.75 months for abusing the bug on one occasion (with 12.50% concessions). It happened before his time with ENCE. This is good news for ENCE fans because they don't have to worry about whether or not their team's success was achieved fairly.

In May of 2017, Twista was the coach of a team known as iGame. iGame never participated in any tier 1 events (though they participated in the qualifiers for these tournaments, they never secured a place in the tournaments), but that doesn't negate the severity of breach of integrity. Twista experienced the coach spectating bug in a match against team Tricked in a regional qualifier match for the Professional Gamers League Krakow 2017 Major. The match was played on the map Nuke. Rather than spectating his team in a first person perspective, Twista's camera location for the entire match was at a spot near the top of the map that showed the entire outside portion of the map (the callout for this region of the map is "outside"). This location is crucial, as it is one of the most used avenues terrorists use to get to bombsite B. From Twista's camera location, Twista could see the positions of the counter-terrorists watching outside, which gave his team a HUGE advantage, since these positions can only be seen by a player if they expose themselves. When the coach spectating bug first hit the mainstream media, Twista informed ENCE of this instance of him abusing the bug and they decided to suspend him until further notice (@ENCE on twitter). 

Coach #2: Starix

    Photo courtesy of TalkEsports.com

Sergey "Starix" Ischuk is the current coach of Hard Legion Esports, and more importantly, former coach of the eastern European team Natus Vincere (NaVi) whom are regarded as one of the best CS:GO teams of all time, despite never winning a major. Their roster has always consisted of some of the top players, yet they've never scored higher than second place (glhf.gg). This particular case is especially important because it is one of the few that pertain to top tier 1 teams. Starix became coach of NaVi on March 17th of 2017 after underperforming at events prior to the announcement. Starix decided it would be best for the team's performance if he was replaced as a player and decided to stay on as coach. 

Starix was issued a ban of 10 months for abusing the bug on one occasion (with 0% concessions). Unlike Twista's situation, the bug was exploited during Starix's time in the tier 1 team NaVi. If further evidence of NaVi abusing the bug is found, the organization might not be able to survive such a significant breach of integrity. What's funny about Starix & NaVi's abuse of the bug is that it was against the same team that Twista abused the bug against: Tricked. In the second match of a best-of-3 series against Tricked during the EU Qualifier stages of the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2017, Starix abused the coach spectate bug. The second map of this series was Mirage, and in this instance of the bug, the coach spectating location was at the top of A-ramp. This is a crucial part of the map, as it is one of two pathways terrorists can use to enter bombsite A straight from their spawnpoint. From Starix's position, he could see most of Bombsite A, which allowed him to gather crucial info on the positions of the enemy team, whether they were defending the site as counter-terrorists or attempting to take the site as terrorists. Hard Legion Esports has not released any statements regarding Starix's use of the spectating bug.

Coach #3: Guerri

              Photo courtesy of Liquipedia

Nicholas "Guerri" Noguiera is a former professional CS:GO player and is the current coach of the Brazilian team FURIA Esports. In February of 2018, Guerri was promoted to head coach of FURIA Esports. Unlike the previous coaches I have talked about, I feel that the imposing of sanctions on Guerri is unfair. Even though FURIA Esports has never made it past the Qualifier stages of a Major, this case still deserves attention. 

Guerri was issued a ban of 4 months for allegedly abusing the bug on two separate occasions (with 60% concessions). One occasion was against compLexity Gaming during a best-of-3 series during season 7 of the Esports Champion Series. The other occasion was during a best-of-3 series against Luminosity Gaming during the same event (ECS Season 7).  I will go into the specifics of his case as well as the case of another coach whom I believe has been banned unfairly on a separate page. 

Coach #4: Robban

Photo courtesy of Liquipedia

Robert "Robban" Dahlström is a formal coach for the tier 1 team FaZe Clan. Robban was named as Coach of FaZe Clan in February of 2016, and stepped down from his position in the beginning of January in 2019 due to personal reasons (gosugamers & hltv). Robban is another example of a coach having sanctions unjustly imposed upon them as a result of the investigation into the spectating bug. 

Robban was issued a ban of 5.5 months for allegedly abusing the bug in a best-of-1 match against Astralis in 2017 (with 45% concessions). This match was part of season 3 of the Esports Champion Series (ECS Season 3 Europe). As stated previously, I will go into the specifics surrounding this case in the next page, which is specifically about Guerri and Robban being banned.