Earlier today it was announced Verdant have been disqualified from the ESL Premiership Autumn Open Qualifier 2023. The merged Dripmen & sakana123 team faced a first round match-up against the likes of Jake “KicA” Harter and Ben “ghil” Nicholson, who were amongst the RubyMerchants roster. However, it ended in scandal as claims began circulating the team had stream sniped during the match. Verdant’s Harry “moshi” Raines confirmed this on twitter this morning, stating it was after coming up against match point on Inferno they began stream sniping one of the mix team’s players who was streaming the game, with a 30-second delay.
I usually stray away from serious tweets and but I feel this is necessary. As many are aware, yesterday we played EPS open qualifier, our first game being against ghil and kica's mix. Long story short, we stream sniped 2 rounds towards the end of CT side to secure overtime.
— moshi (@moshi_cs) August 19, 2023
Despite salvaging overtime from two rounds behind and securing the 22-20 victory, Verdant were subsequently removed from the tournament all together. This meant they missed out on a lower bracket run, which would have been the reality had they of lost the match.
In an official announcement from ESL Premiership’s Matt “MsC” Smithson-Connelly on the matter, he clarified “RubyMerchants will be progressed into the Upper Bracket to play 7AM- SOGBOX will be given a BYE in the Lower Bracket”. RubyMerchants have since lost their match with 7AM, but continue to progress through the Lower Bracket after taking down The Lizards, 16-14.
This also results in Verdant’s termination of their entire CS:GO roster, according to a Tweet, after being officially contracted to the organisation for 50 days. Another consequence of the scandal is the banning of all player POV streams for the rest of the qualifier in order to avoid potential further stream sniping occurences.
Statement on our CS:GO roster. pic.twitter.com/BjzqhBc2Gn
— Verdant (@Verdant_gg) August 19, 2023
Anthony “BehinDx” Luscombe tweeted his outlook on the events and stated his reasons for owning up to him and his team’s stream sniping antics. He provides clarification as to why the squad resorted to stream sniping, stating “I’m not going to be quiet to appease someone who’s streamsniping to save face and refusing to take an L” and asserted that it was “a shockingly shortsighted decision”.
On a more serious note, what happened yesterday was disgusting and is against everything I stand for which was why I couldn't keep quiet about it. I'm not going to be quiet to appease someone who's streamsniping to save face and refusing to take an L.
1/3
— Tony (@BehinDxcs) August 19, 2023
